While he was doing his military service in Niğde in 1938, Orhan Kemal was sentenced to five years of imprisonment because he read the works of Maxim Gorky and Nazım, which was believed to be "propagandizing for foreign regimes and encouraging sedition". Apparently, the time he spent in prison, what he actually observed there led him to write a work of art like Ward 72. In Ward 72, Kemal tells the story of a group of prisoners who are regarded as the most destitute in the prison. Being so poor, they are also the filthiest. Each one of these passengers is like an earthworm standing up. A loaf of black bread, stale or fresh, always indistinguishable from mud, is not only their breakfast, lunch or supper but it's the whole wherewithal for their hammam, barber and cigarette expenses. The world is at war. German troops rage through Europe and theirs is a whole lot different story of survival.
Against all odds, Ahmet Kaptan is the only man who achieves to stay human. He does not fight for the chicken bones that the administrators throw to the jail garden, he does not gamble for cigarette butts, he believes a human is an honorable being. The former captain serves his time in the prison he revenges his father's death. A blood feud which still preserves its presence in the Middle Eeastern culture is actually why a captain like him is in the prison. When his mother, whom Kaptan barely remembers now, sends him 150 liras, Kaptan's status changes from a poor, filthy member of the Ward 72 to an agha who feeds the poor. Instead of moving to a different ward, he chooses to stay in there. He believes in sharing what he has in naive,uncritical, unsophisticated belief in the eternal, inherent goodness of humanity. As he has got the dough now, even those who grudge him turns into smarmy, manipulative fellows. Their calculating, manipulative manners don't put a dent in Kaptain's humanity but it still takes away his peace of mind. From petty criminals to the guards, everyone in the prison goes through a character deformation. The prison, like a microcosm of Turkey during 40s, sheds some light on the injustices, poverty, inequality of the period.
Unfortunately, Saraçoğlu's movie treats this time-honored story as a love story. The ward for females does not really occupy a long chapter in Orhan Kemal's book. The fact that the movie accentuates the females' ward and the presence of Fatma, presumably because of Hülya Avşar publicity makes the story lose its original meaning Like it or not, this story has a political side. The movie does not openly mention that this story takes place during WW2.The only thing you hear about the war is a paper boy who is calling out a headline about Hitler. Saraçoğlu supposes that a few scenes --like the one the prisoners create a stampede for chicken bone or the one they were hosed off by warders – can create a gritty real effect but they don't. What's more, it sounds cliché after a point. In the old Turkish movies, Turkish women had to murder them when their kith and kin tried to rape them but somehow they had to be raped in the prison. As if one cliché were not enough, the movie goes to any length to stereotype other female characters. Yavuz Bingöl's acting may sound better (than Kadir İnanır's portrayal of Kaptan in the first 1987 adaptation) but when you see that Kaptan repeats everything in a discordant, jarring fashion it gets on your nerves. There must have been a better way to show his increasing loneliness, helplessness and insanity. Erdogan Tokatlı's 72. Koğuş(1987) was not really perfect. Cinematographically, it could have been better but it's still a lot better than this one. It still has some "gritty real Orhan Kemal effect" in it without being farcical.
3 out of 3 found this helpful