Poor

Memduh Ün's 1986 film places Kemal Sunal inside melodrama rather than comedy. Kemal is a young man who takes any work he can find and is devoted to football. One day he finds an abandoned baby by the roadside and, instead of handing her to the authorities, takes her in and raises the girl as his own. The film builds a story spanning years around that decision to be a father, and shows how poverty, official records and social pressure keep threatening the relationship. Sunal's character is again the one who is looked down on, but here what comes forward is the poignant rather than the funny. It belongs to the tradition of father and child melodrama Turkish popular cinema returned to often in the eighties. Who it's for: viewers who like Kemal Sunal in dramatic roles and Yeşilçam melodrama. Who it's not for: anyone expecting comedy from Sunal; the film is largely sad.