G.O.R.A.

What are your expectations when you go to see a film? The most noticeable characteristic of Turkish people is that they are able to subtly critise their own culture through comedy and this is what the film has done superbly. When I read general reviews of this film, including the ones on this site, I can't help but see how Cem Yilmaz has quite cleverly and creatively worked a variety of cultural characteristics into a fictional theme. I believe that viewers who have reviewed the film in a light of this have done it justice... and come on, if there are so many 'Arif's out there, how can we still question whether or not there are extra- terrestrial life forms out there too! :-)

This is a highly successful and thoroughly hilarious film. When I walked out of the cinema, it didn't even cross my mind to analyze the film in the way I usually would.. I mean why should I? I really don't believe the writer or director even thought of doing this themselves. it's not 'persona' or anything. I experienced two hours of solid laughter. I mean what else would I have wished for? (When I think back though, the only down side was I didn't buy enough pop corn...:-))

Personally, I didn't feel the need to overstress the superb quality of the visual effects either. Yes they were surprisingly fantastic, very 'Hollywood', but this didn't add or take away from the film in any way. Put it this way, if a song is beautifully written then it will sound great even if you were to just serenade it. But if the song is crap/ badly written, then even the London Philharmonic Orchestra can't do much with it believe me!

In short, this film must not be missed! Leave all your expectations at home and don't watch it with any intention of reviewing it... just sit back & enjoy.

The movie is funny. Except some essential Turkish jokes, it's comic for any one. There are so many details that can make a man laugh.

We seen large super computers at Matrix, that loaded something to Neo, in GORA they used a Commodore 64(a computer classic :) )to do it. An android fortune tells to princess with Turkish coffee, these kinds of details are make movie much more funny.

Story is great, acting is great, details are great, some Special effects are not so good, but it's not a Hollywood movie, and also CEM YILMAZ, he wrote and also played perfect. He is really funny and perfect as in his other advertisement movies and old movies

Arif is a typical Turkish bloke selling carpets to tourists in Western Turkey. He is also obsessed with creating fake pictures of UFOs. Then he gets abducted by aliens from the GORA planet. After all there is no rule that says aliens can only abduct people from the USA. Nor is there a rule that says that only Americans can make contact with extra-terrestrial life forms. So what happens if aliens abduct a Turkish carpet seller ?

Basically, GORA is a good piss take of the more popular sci-fi movies such as Starwars and Matrix. And that's fine with me, because I believe both Starwars (feel the Farce) and Matrix (I know Kung Fu) are extremely overrated movies. The sense of humour in GORA is Turkish. That is neither a praise nor an insult. It is just Turkish. The subtitles don't help either. For some reason Turkish movie producers hire awful translators who sometimes even mix German with English. Translation between languages that are as different from each other as Turkish and English requires slightly more than a word-by-word correspondence. I hereby offer my services free of charge. Just ask. Had the subtitles been any better the movie could have achieved some international recognition as a comedy movie. Turkish speakers should definitely watch this movie. They'll have a good laugh. Non-Turks should give it a try.

This movie takes one of the best abilities of us, the Turkish folk: To be able to make fun of things (especially in difficult situations), and puts it on the screen. Although most of the jokes are local, I'd love to see how a foreigner would react to the movie. The Turkish reaction is obvious: Many, many laughs.

It is hard to comment on a comedy movie's plot, but I can say that G.O.R.A.'s is at least as "meaningful", or as good as The Matrix' or Star Trek's.

And special effects deserve a single word: "Stunning!" Until now, Turkish sci-fi movies had been known for their special effects, or more specifically, their lack thereof. However, G.O.R.A. seems to have made the turning point in the Turkish movie industry. Watch it to see "what we (as in 'the Turkish folk') can do", if not for the hours of fun you are bound to have.

Well, first of all, this movie is a good project. There is no science-fiction film in the history of Turkish cinema, and if you think about the budget, which was about 4 Mio. USD and nevertheless huge for Turkish proportions, George Lucas wasted a budget of 125 Mio USD for Star Wars Episode III, then it is the optimum of what has been created.

The story is no revolution, but no one ever expected that. Cem Yilmaz realised his vision of "Turks in space" and made his work well. His love for details is average.

To understand everything in that film, first you gotta be Turkish, since a big part of the humor is based on the street language that Cem Yilmaz is using perfectly. The second thing is, you have to know some US Science-Fiction movies like Star Wars, Matrix or Star Trek. Only the combination of these two requirements makes the movie really funny.

G.O.R.A is unusual to the Turkish public, so this is why some people didn't like it I think. I consider this work as new era of special fx in Turkish movies.

In the end, it is a solid Turkish space movie.