Exodus review – broadside against Erdoğan’s Turkey takes the multi-narrative, multi-character route
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Serkan Nihat’s story follows a group of Turkish fugitives, but it bites off rather more than it can chew
The cinematic response to populism and incipient fascism worldwide over the last decade hasn’t fully mobilised – but this broadside on the authoritarian leanings of Erdoğan’s Turkey doesn’t pull its punches. (Unsurprisingly, it’s produced by a UK-based team.) It’s a shame then that, lambasting the effects on education, policing, freedom of expression and the demonisation of minorities, director Serkan Nihat is wedded to a hectoring, didactic method that dulls the audience’s engagement, instead of firing us up.
Nihat opts for the fragmented, multi-character narrative beloved of big-picture global film-makers in the 00s (think 21 Grams or Babel). Academic Hakan (Denis Ostier) becomes a fugitive after his pro-democracy lecture is invaded by regime goons. Hakan is later assaulted by vengeful cop Yilmaz (Murat Zeynilli), his one-time school bully, and then hooks up with another policeman, Mehmet (Umit Ulgen), also on the lam after a crisis of conscience about the politicisation of his work. The pair hole up in a safehouse full of migrants being chivvied to Greece by people-smuggler Sahab (Doga Celik). Meanwhile, Hakan and Mehmet’s wives find themselves targeted by the security forces in a clampdown.
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