Somersault in a Coffin

Somersault in a Coffin (1996) is one of the most important films in the independent strand of Turkish cinema, and the man it describes actually existed. Mahsun lives at Rumelihisarı on the Bosphorus with no home, no job and nobody. His only friends are the fishermen there. His only passion is cars. At night he steals one, drives it until morning, then washes and cleans it and returns it where he found it. He sells nothing and earns nothing. He only wants to drive. The Mahsun of the film is not invented; he comes from the story of a real man named Mahsun Süpertaş. It was Derviş Zaim's first film, and the conditions of the shoot are part of its legend: it was made with almost no budget and finished in twenty four days. The crew worked on solidarity rather than money. It took four Golden Orange awards at Antalya that year and more than twelve prizes in total. The nineties were the commercial low point of Turkish cinema, and this film became one of the demonstrations that independent production was still possible. Tuncel Kurtiz is in the cast. Derviş Zaim appears in it as well. Few films have caught what the Bosphorus looks like in winter as well as this one does. Not postcard Istanbul, but cold Istanbul. It runs 76 minutes. Good for: Turkish independent cinema, street level drama, and the nineties. Less good for: it is a hopeless film, hunger and poverty are shown directly, and there is a scene involving harm to an animal.