When MTV began airing an unprecedented TV show featuring a group of strangers living together in the same house, with their relations recorded on camera for all to watch, it kick-started a new age in television. The Real World debuted in 1992, helping make George Orwell’s dystopian omnipotent eye Big Brother a reality for years to come.
MTV has always been a fragmented TV experience, breaking the norms and standards of mainstream broadcasting for a progressive, younger audience. While The Real World had a cult following (the show will enter its 24th season this month), it wasn’t inspirational for producers of big TV channels.
All that changed in the late 1990s when a major TV outlet began airing Big Brother in the Netherlands. The rest is history. Today, in 70 countries, ordinary people are exhibiting their fears, longings and eating and sleeping habits on TV for the enjoyment of millions.
Andy Warhol’s forecast that everybody would be famous for 15 minutes was becoming true, and a new sense of television programming opened the way for ordinary people to become popular household names, even if only for a few weeks, or hopefully for a couple of months.
Big Brother is watching us in Turkey
Turkey jumped on the bandwagon in 2000 with Biri Bizi Gözetliyor (Somebody is Watching Us), which ended three years ago after seven seasons. While the first three seasons became a major phenomenon in Turkish pop culture, the novelty later wore off, giving way to different reality shows based on the same concept, such as Would You Be My Bride?, Would You Marry Me? and Let’s Have Dinner. Four participants from the first three seasons later recorded albums, extending their short-lived fame to a whole summer.
The new thriller Ev (The House) from the sibling directing duo Alper and Caner Özyurtlu, takes us to an imaginary Big Brother house, recreated with an uncanny resemblance to the original one. It’s eviction day and one of the contestants has to leave by the end of the day. After watching the senseless and self-important ramblings of the contestants, one of them dramatically selects another one to leave the house.
When the evictee leaves the house, someone else enters. It’s not a new member for the bizarre household, but a sociopath with a gun. The man takes both crew and contestants hostage with the threat of bombs scattered around the house. He soon shows that he’s not your regular villain. The man is clever, educated and aware of the dynamics of TV, and he desperately wants his 15 minutes in the spotlight. He might also be one of the most memorable movie villains in Turkish cinema.
Let the games begin
The man makes sure the whole imbroglio is broadcast live as he begins his own games in front of the cameras. He draws on the high-strung nature of reality shows to create a lethal show of his own. The tag line, “It’s not important who starts the game, but who ends it,” makes a whole lot of sense as we approach the second half of the film.
The idea might sound trite, but the use of cameras, dialogue and top-notch performances makes Ev not only a thriller with an incredible pace that leaves audience members on the edge of their seats, but also a strong social commentary on the changing nature of voyeurism and exhibitionism in our age. That the directors do not try to stick messages down the viewers’ throats and repeat in interviews that they dislike labeling the movie as a media critique makes the social commentary all the stronger.
The scenes in the house are filmed in the same style as in any Big Brother house. There are eight cameras, and the Özyurtlu brothers have made sure that the actors playing the contestants do not know which shots are being used at any given time. These scenes are juxtaposed with still shots of everything else going on outside the house. The news reports and scenes of famous talk-show host Okan Bayülgen blend in nicely with the overall theme of the movie.
Comparisons are already been made to various movies such as Marc Evans’ My Little Eye, Scott Wiper’s The Condemned or Michael Haneke’s Funny Games. The last two decades have seen an incredible change in how media interacts with its audience, and this naturally has been an inspiration to filmmakers around the world. The list of comparisons could go on, yet it still wouldn’t stand in the way of this debut film’s being a uniquely fresh piece of work.
Originally published in Hürriyet Daily News on 11 June 2010
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