Bir Başkadır

Bir Başkadır, a title that someone at Netflix somehow decided to translate as Ethos (?!), is the best TV show I have seen in a long time. The Netflix site's capsulized description is: "A group of individuals in Istanbul transcend sociocultural boundaries and find connection as their fears and wishes intertwine." Fair enough. And Citizen Kane was about a boy and his sled.

For me Bir Başkadır brought to mind the works of great directors of family-based dramas like Ozu and Farhadi; the Farhadi connection is particularly apt given Bir Başkadır's explorations of gender and family dynamics in the context of a nominally Muslim society roiled by tensions between traditional/religious and modern/secular. Like Farhadi, the show's creator Berkun Oya uses the sociological backdrop to explore individual psychology and universal human themes. 

Oya has his own cinematic language. The show is built on dialogues, in the quite literal sense of two people talking. Each episode is constructed as a network of dyads: We sit in the room as A talks with B, then maybe B with C, and A with C, and B with D, etc. The camera focuses on the faces, almost always one at a time, in close-up. As they speak we ponder, are they talking with the other, or at the other, or to themselves, or against themselves? Some of the dialogues involve psychiatrists/ analysts... but who is analyzing whom, and which direction is the transference going?

As the old cliché would have it, the eyes are the windows of the soul, and Bir Başkadır certainly draws your attention to the eyes of its talking heads. But the camera also ranges around outside, whether downtown, or in the suburbs or countryside, and Oya finds beauty and mystery in the actual windows of the homes and vehicles in which his characters live and interact. 

In all of this Oya is assisted by an outstanding cast– most of all by Öykü Karayel, who plays the central character Meryem, a housekeeper living with her angry, frustrated, and not very bright brother and his damaged, possibly suicidal wife. All the dyads connect to Meryem, within one or two degrees of separation. Meryem is observant in more ways than one, and she is clever and funny. Karayel's eyes blaze, and her lips are plastic enough to express wonder, sadness, disdain, and ironic amusement within a span of moments. 

If I have a criticism, it is that the music can be obtrusive at times. But you know where the volume control is, and you will probably be reading the subtitles rather than following the talking anyway.