Red Istanbul [Rosso Istanbul] **½ (2017, Halit Ergenç, Nejat İşler, Tuba Büyüküstün, Serra Yılmaz, Mehmet Günsür, Zerrin Tekindor, Reha Özcan) – Classic Movie Review 12,735

Ferzan Özpetek’s subtle, smouldering 2017 film Red Istanbul stars Halit Ergenç as a Turkish writer who relives his relationships with friends, family and past loves when he returns to Istanbul to help a famous director edit his first novel.

Director Ferzan Özpetek’s 2017 film Red Istanbul [Rosso Istanbul] is based on his own novel of the same name, published in 2013. Özpetek was born in Istanbul in 1959 but decided to move to Italy in 1976 to study and work, and this is the first film he made in Turkey for many years.

Halit Ergenç stars as the Turkish writer Orhan Şahin, who has lived in London for many years, but returns to Istanbul after so long to help the famous director Deniz Soysal to edit his first novel. Deniz has been living with his family in a mansion that has started to lose its old brightness and power. Orhan finds himself in the middle of Deniz’s complicated relationships, looking with nostalgia at the places where he was born and raised, reliving his relationships with friends, family and past loves.

Red Istanbul [Rosso Istanbul] is low key, subtle, smouldering, elusive, and somewhat frustrating, but with plenty of attractive, quite beguiling Istanbul atmosphere, a sweet air of harmony and nostalgia, and a good lead performance by Halit Ergenç.

The film is shot in Turkish with an all Turkish cast. Özpetek came back to shoot a film in Istanbul nearly two decades after his second film Harem Square (1999). The film premiered at the Rome Film Festival.

The cast are Halit Ergenç as Orhan Şahin, Tuba Büyüküstün as Neval, Mehmet Günsür as Yusuf, Nejat İşler as Deniz Soysal, Serra Yılmaz as Sibel, Zerrin Tekindor as Aylin, Ayten Gökçer as Betül, İpek Bilgin as Güzin, Çiğdem Selışık Onat as Süreyya, and Reha Özcan as Ali.

Red Istanbul was released in Italy on 2 March 2017. It was released in Turkey on 3 March 2017 as İstanbul Kırmızısı.

PG.

There were several production problems because of the delicate social and political situation in Istanbul, and filming was delayed from September 2015 to 12 April 2016, taking place for seven weeks. It was shot entirely in Istanbul, but in some areas shooting was not possible for safety reasons.

The film cost 5.5 million Euro.

Özpetek’s directorial debut was Hamam, released in May 1997. His 1999 film Harem Suare, set in his native land of Turkey, tells the tormented love story between the Sultan’s favourite, Safiye, and the eunuch Nadir, against the background of the fall of the Ottoman Empire. He is also the director of Loose Cannons and Nuovo Olimpo.

© Derek Winnert 2023 – Classic Movie Review 12,735

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