The International

Adıyaman, 1982. Two years after the coup, a wedding band is assigned to welcome one of the junta's generals. Abuzer, a saz teacher, and his friends are trained to play the official marches, converted from the folk music they have played for years into a military band. At the same time Abuzer's daughter Gülendam becomes involved with the left. Father and daughter stand at opposite ends of the same town. Written by Sırrı Süreyya Önder and directed by Önder with Muharrem Gülmez, the film does not tell the coup through violence directly. The register is comic, and the cruelty shows through absurdity: a banned song, an invented pretext, a ceremony made ridiculous by fear. Even the title, the popular Turkish rendering of the name of the Internationale, is part of that humour. Cezmi Baskın plays Abuzer and Özgü Namal plays Gülendam. Who it's for: Viewers who like narratives of the 1980 coup period, political satire, and Turkish films built around music. Who it's not for: The comic register hardens in the final section and the transition is jarring. Some references will stay closed without knowledge of the period.