Atatürk II 1881-1919

The film covers what came after Gallipoli. Mustafa Kemal has become a known commander; he is then sent to the eastern front and afterwards to Syria. The war is lost, the army disperses, and what he finds on returning to Istanbul is heavier than the front: occupation, surrender, and the state dismantling its own army. The narrative ends with his departure for Samsun in 1919. Mehmet Ada Öztekin directs from a screenplay by Necati Şahin. Aras Bulut İynemli plays Mustafa Kemal, with Songül Öden, Sarp Akkaya and Esra Bilgiç in the cast. The production's own story became part of the account. The project was prepared as a series for a streaming platform; the platform withdrew from broadcasting it and there was a large reaction in Turkey. The episodes were then combined into two cinema films. The first opened on 29 October 2023 and the second at the beginning of 2024. Because each film is three episodes joined together the structure is episodic; the transitions carry a television rhythm. The battle scenes are at a large scale with few equivalents in Turkish cinema; the eastern front sections in particular are broadly staged. The narrative chooses exhaustion over heroism; the character is shown inside a war already lost even after the battles he wins. Its limits are pace and length; watched together the two films repeat passages, and the first half of the second is slow. Who it is for: viewers who like historical drama and want to follow the founding period of Turkey. Who it is not for: the episodic structure is felt, there are many characters, and the narrative simplifies the political complexity of the period.