Şaban, a Man from the Middle Class

Şaban is a clerk at a factory and in love with Bahar, a secretary there. Bahar has her eye on Erkan, a famous athlete. The factory's owner, Adnan Bıçakçı, reveals that Bahar is his granddaughter. Shortly afterwards she is kidnapped by a gang, and the man who sets out to get her back is not Erkan but Şaban. Kartal Tibet directs. Kemal Sunal plays Şaban. It runs one hour twenty two minutes. The title refers directly to the political language of the period. Ortadirek, a term used constantly in Turkish economic argument in the eighties, described the middle income population said to be carrying the burden while being permanently squeezed. Calling Şaban that establishes the whole posture of the film: the hero is no hero, he is simply the one it falls to. Sunal and Kartal Tibet worked together on many films and produced a template of their own in Turkish cinema: the ordinary man at the edge of the system whose word counts for nothing and who turns out to be right in the end. The narrative follows the popular comedy shape of the period: misunderstandings, class difference, and standing regained at the close. Who it is for: viewers who like Kemal Sunal's comedies and Turkish cinema of the eighties. Who it is not for: the production resources are limited, the cutting is rough, and the female character functions largely as an object of the plot.