Turkish War Drama NEFES Impresses ... ** UPDATED **

Reader Comments

1. Da Russia 12/25/2007 @ 8:47am

   Wow! Ha-ha-ha!

   That is the clone of the 9th Company by Fedor Bondarchuk.

   I was shocked, the scenes were just copied from Bondarchuk’s film. For example, the haircut scene is 100% copied, training scenes, etc, etc…

   Nothing new actually for turkish cinematography. However, they improved their copying style since Turkish Rambo and Turkish Batman.

2. Todd Brown 12/25/2007 @ 10:24am

   You know, I really like Bondarchuk’s film and if I were the director I’d be pretty flattered to have my shooting style compared to his because the guy shoots amazing film, but to say he’s ripping off the haircut and training scenes is just silly.  Those scenes appear in virtually every war film ever made everywhere in the world.  You may as well say Bondarchuk stole them from Platoon or Full Metal Jacket or any one of twenty or thirty other films I could pull up within the next few minutes if I cared to do so. 

   The haircuts and training sequences appear in absolutely every war film that has any interest whatsoever in its characters because those are the moments in a soldier’s life where the military sets out to take away their individuality.  They’re key character moments and any director with half a clue what they’re doing will recognize them as such and use them to make some sort of point.

   Not saying the people behind Nefes haven’t been influenced by 9th Company or any other film but it’s WAY too early to say they’re cribbing from anything ... that trailer doesn’t show nearly enough to leap to those conclusions.

3. Z 12/25/2007 @ 11:05pm

   Synopsis:

   Nefes (Breath) is the story of a 40 men team commanded by a
   Captain. It tells the pains, happinesses and
   life struggle, of 40 soldiers who have been assigned
   to defend a relay station at the 2365 meter altitude
   Karabal hill, as they perform their as they perform
   their duties.(Translated from the synopsis at the film’s official website.)

   More information about the movie:

   The movie is based on a book called Guneydogu’dan
   Oykuler by H.Evrensel (Stories from the South East), which is a
   collection of stories based on memoirs of the people
   who have been affected by the terror problem in the
   South East region of Turkey.

   The cast does not include any well-known actors from
   Turkish movie scene. All of the 40 actors playing the
   40 soldiers have been recruited from various screen
   acting and drama schools from various regions of Turkey.
   They have been given basic military training for one
   month, by retired army officers.

   Most of the scenes is being shot in Kemer, Antlaya,
   at the Tahtali mountain which has been found to
   resemble the original location, by the director.

   Nefes is Levent Semerci’s first feature film project. He is an award winning
   director of tv commercials and music videos. He’s a graduate of Anadolu Universitesi Iletisim Fakultesi (a major school for Turkish film and tv scene).

   (Put together from various news articles about the movie, on the Turkish news portals.)

4. Da Russia 12/26/2007 @ 1:15am

   Ok. Let’s see.

   Synopsys for 9th Company:

   9th Company is the story of 39 men team commanded by a Captain Khohol. It tells the pains, happinesses and life struggle, of 39 soldiers who have been assigned
   to defend a position at the 3234 meter altitude Hill 3234, as they perform their as they perform their duties.

   Based on real story: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_for_Hill_3234

   Synopsys for Nefes:

   Nefes (Breath) is the story of a 40 men team commanded by a Captain. It tells the pains, happinesses and life struggle, of 40 soldiers who have been assigned
   to defend a relay station at the 2365 meter altitude Karabal hill, as they perform their as they perform their duties.

   Ha-ha-ha!

5. Todd Brown 12/26/2007 @ 3:13pm

   Wow.  That’s just weird.  But considering that Nefes is based on a Turkish book and Bondarchuk’s film is based on an actual platoon in Afghanistan I think it’s just a weird coincidence.  I’ve got the director’s email address, though ... I’ll ask him ...

6. Todd Brown 12/27/2007 @ 2:10am

   No connection between this and 9th Company at all.  And the director didn’t seem at all impressed by the suggestion that he’d copy another film.  This is part of his response:

   “how can your readers point out similarities between a trailer and a feature film…this is a trailer…you should watch [the film], then ask me silly questions like this ...”

7. Da Russia 12/27/2007 @ 6:39am

   Todd, please don’t be so naive. Of course, director would refuse that he copied other film even if he did.

   First off all, when i watched trailer at the first time i found big similarities. Many scenes were just copied. Second, the synopsis (short storyline) was almost 100% copy of 9th Company’s storyline.

   “how can your readers point out similarities between a trailer and a feature film…this is a trailer…you should watch [the film], then ask me silly questions like this ...”

   I point similarities not only in the scenes in trailer, but in the whole storyline.

8. Aleph 12/27/2007 @ 11:25am

   Uh, Vladimir, you wrote the sypnosis of 9th Company on your own in order to make it look similar to the badly translated sypnosis of Nefes. It’s pretty clear you have an agenda here. Plus, from what I understand, Todd himself has seen 9th Company and he didn’t seem to find any similarities between them.

9. Todd Brown 12/27/2007 @ 12:04pm

   It’s pretty simple.  Nefes is based on a Turkish book.  It’s easily available.  9th Company is based on an incident in the Russian occupation of Afghanistan.  There’s no overlap.  The only similarity is that both involve squads trying to hold a hilltop position which is what military squads tend to do.  That’s kind of their job.

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