“At the bottom”: the Turkish version If any housewife, in whose soul back in time it was firmly sunk Turkish melodrama "The King is a songbird", inadvertently sees this film Sinan Cetin, then most likely will not regret unflattering epithets for him. That's what love is supposed to be in a movie! And that’s because many of the attributes of the genre in “Number 14” is obvious: and poor poor girl, and male nobility, and willingness to give each other life, and even a songbird. Why should everyone be so bullied? Why show exceptionally ugly aspects of life, pull out all sorts of vices and paint the life of urban scum, savoring every fragment of it? Where are the handsome men, the ladies suffering from love, the intrigues, the insidious envious and the lovers who overcome all obstacles? No, Cetin-bey clearly did not shoot his picture for housewives, otherwise he would somehow try to embellish his ruthless and hopeless story of people thrown out of life. At least as Italians did in the 50s of the last century.
But the Turk did not intend to shoot the second Nights of Kabiria, although it is not difficult to see the influence of neorealism in his story about the prostitute Yaprak. Times still stood different, and the story of the tragedy of the Istanbul bottom he led with all the rudeness of naturalism, not that retouching the dirty sides of life – on the contrary, exposing them to the forefront and carefully coloring the most disgusting colors. So that there are no illusions left. In prostitutes from a cheap brothel there is no charm, let alone romance: hard and dirty work has long knocked out of them the remnants of femininity and beauty. Their clients are just a nasty herd of concerned men who are not divided into personalities at all. In this herd, as usual, there are alpha males who try to assert themselves at the expense of the weaker ones and get the most beautiful female. And since it happens where the laws of society lose their force and meaning, life becomes a struggle for existence not in the philosophical sense of the word.
Yaprak comes to this world from the province, fleeing home. And a naive girl to survive in this world without a strong hand is impossible. And the fact that she was loved by a guy as naive and pure in spirit as Nechmi only aggravates the situation. He does not know how to live according to the laws of the bottom. He grew up in another world, where the struggle for survival is hidden under the carpet of decency, rules and laws, he is powerless against the brutal Arap who does not recognize any rules. His love for Yaprak looks like a miracle in a rough and cruel world. As you know, there are no miracles.
Cetina’s film is completely devoid of romance, but not sentimentality. Because of this, sometimes there is a strange feeling: the director clearly tries to touch some strings of the human soul, cause sympathy, maybe even tears, but at the same time does not give any hope, emphatically avoids beauty in everything, preferring to shoot close-ups of a carcass smeared on wrinkled cheeks, uncleaned streets of slums, a glass eye falling out of the eye socket of the old woman, heaps of garbage in the city dump, etc., etc. The cameraman seems to set out to show the decay and decay in which sex with prostitutes from the establishment of Mother Sultan takes center stage. Because he, too, is dirt and disease. In spite of them, the relationship between Yaprak and Nechmi is almost platonic, the only love scene between them is shown veiled and carefully, so as not to violate the general message: love and beauty exist somewhere, not in the space of Number 14, not in the red light district, not in the world of prostitutes, pimps and gigolos, taking the last money from dying girlfriends.
So, the beauty remains behind the scenes. And in the frame - dirt, lust, poverty and hopelessness, which can not overcome a lonely hero. Except for the heart, God did not give him courage, strength, courage, or firmness of character. Where to fight evil? Trust in God? But he doesn’t care about these goats. This phrase, embedded in the mouth of Arap’s gigolo, is essentially the quintessence of Number 14. There is no hope for his characters. And even if there is a light in front of the tunnel, it will be just a mirage.