Expat Şaban

Kartal Tibet's 1985 Turkish film is about a man who goes to Germany as a labourer. Şaban is poor and travels abroad to earn money; once there, not knowing the language, the weight of the work and loneliness put him into a series of strange situations. The film draws its humour from the difference of culture: conversations that are not understood, an inability to keep to the rules and the arithmetic of money to be sent home. The relationships he builds in Germany and the distance between him and children growing up there form a second line. It is one of the films Kemal Sunal made about migrant workers in the eighties and records the experience of labour migration through comedy. Some of the jokes may now count as dated. Who it's for: viewers who like Yeşilçam comedy and the films of Kemal Sunal. Who it's not for: anyone expecting the experience of migration to be treated seriously; the film puts comedy first.