Katma Değer Şaban

Kartal Tibet's 1985 film puts Kemal Sunal's Şaban character in the position of a worker returning from Germany. Şaban comes to Istanbul to untangle a fraud pinned on his father, but the people who meet him at the airport take one look at how he is dressed and decide he cannot help anyone. The title points at the value added tax that had just come into force in Turkey that year, and the reference is not incidental: the story is about money, accounts and who ends up paying, from beginning to end. Sunal's character is, as always, the one who is underestimated and turns out to be right, and the comedy works best where the class gap is visible. It carries the familiar shapes of eighties Turkish popular cinema. Who it's for: viewers who enjoy Kemal Sunal comedies and eighties Yeşilçam humour. Who it's not for: anyone who will find the period's handling of its female characters, and the repeated gags, dated.