BMC MOVIE OF THE WEEK: DÜNYAYI KURTARAN ADAM (TURKISH STAR WARS)

Dünyayi Kurtaran Adam aka The Man Who Saves the World aka Turkish Star Wars (1982)

• 
• 

• Cüneyt Arkin,
• Aytekin Akkaya,
• Füsun Uçar
•   Two space cadets crash-land on a desert planet, where an evil wizard seeks the ultimate power to take over the world. Although the movie borrows some background footage from Star Wars, the plot is mostly unrelated. -Imdb

69% liked it

Unrated, 1 hr. 31 min.

Director: Çetin Inanç

 

May 30, 2010: The Solemnity of the Most Holy Trinity (Year C)

Artsy-fartsy types aren’t the only ones with a fondness for foreign films, we B-Movie guys like them too . But when speaking the universal language of low budgets, sometimes our subtitles get short shrift. Take the opening voice-over for Dünyayi Kurtaran Adam which read:

"Our world which had been formed into matter from rays and energy five billion years ago; got fragmented into dust clouds under the influence of laser rays in the galaxy age. Who was this enemy? In which galaxy was he? All humans used one single weapon against this danger. They started to resist with a crust which was welded with human brain and willpower. A coating which was formed by compressed human brain molecules was protecting the earth."

What does that even mean? And why is it being said while the theme from Raiders Of The Lost Ark plays over scenes from Star Wars? And what does it have to do with the cardboard robots, guys in Muppet suits, and roman gladiators who populate the film?

You know, who cares? This is the Mecca of bad Muslim films. A pastiche of pirated material from American blockbusters (Queen’s Flash Gordon score is oddly fitting), pre-school pageant level special effects, and metaphysical religious ramblings one can only pray makes sense in the original Turkish (otherwise, those people are all nuts), Dünyayi Kurtaran Adam reaches levels of surreality that ‘art’ films can only dream of. And besides, when you’re confronted with a scene like the infamous training montage in which the heroes tie boulders to their legs and beat up a mountain, does it matter if some of the language is incomprehensible? All that’s important is that you get what you need from the film… a good laugh.

We don’t usually think about laughs on Trinity Sunday. After all, it’s one of the few celebrations devoted strictly to a doctrine rather than a person or event, so it’s really easy to get bogged down in theological geek-speak trying to figure out how the whole one God in three persons thing is supposed to work. That’s why, when the tech talk gets too deep, it’s nice to turn to that old saying of Meister Eckhart’s:

“When the Father laughs at the Son and the Son laughs back at the Father, that laughter gives pleasure, that pleasure gives joy, that joy gives love, and that love is the Holy Spirit.”

Eckhart, who could be a little cryptic himself sometimes, manages to deftly bypass the jargon and reminds us of what we need to get from the doctrine, that the Trinity serves as a model for all our relationships, personal and communal. As Pope Benedict XVI puts it, “Love alone makes us happy, because we live in relation, and we live to love and to be loved... as in the life of the Most Holy Trinity, plurality is repaired in unity, where everything is pleasure and joy.”