Vatanim Sensin – You are my country

My second major Turkish drama after Magnificent Century, and it proves that that one wasn’t just a flash in the pan.

Before I get into the specifics of this one – a random tangential detour. Turkey seems to have quite a thing for period drama. I wonder if this is something I’m hyperaware of, simply because I’m watching their content as an outsider, or because I haven’t discovered enough of their contemporary content yet (quite likely!) but a disproportionate number of their successful programming seems to draw on history – both modern and medieval. My take on this is that this is (at least partly) due of the growing pains of a young country that’s not yet come to terms with its turbulent history. Modern Turkey came into existence only in 1922, and to come together as a country required letting go of a lot of links to their history before that, something that can’t have been easy. Like most young countries, they’ve gone through periods of political turbulence and upheaval, and a LOT of their content uses that as the backdrop.

Back to Vatanim Sensin – it’s another period drama, the period being post WW1 years and the political backdrop being the country’s struggle for Independence.

What I loved most about this one was its easy straddling of multiple genres. It’s a family drama, and a romance, but just as easily a political drama and a patriotic story.

It kept the romance alive, but seamlessly (and without getting preachy) asked deeper questions about what constitutes patriotism, does it truly justify certain actions, who benefits, and who loses in the acts of war.

It reaches for, and achieves, epic proportions in moments. Some of the battle scenes, the Amasya declaration and its reverberations across the country, the (in parts) inspired poetry of ‘Halit Ikbal’, all achieve greatness and goosebumps. But the rest of the story remains firmly grounded – it never strays from being the family saga of Cevdet and Azize, their trials in love and parenthood and patriotism all bleeding into one another. The larger politics get embroiled with petty jealousies, and eventually, with a couple of admittedly improbable plot twists. But perhaps, here lies the biggest achievement of this show – the fact that it weaves both threads, and manages this without completely losing the plot.  

The acting is superb, by most of the central characters – Halit Ergenc needs no introduction, he is as convincing as a patriot as he was as the emperor. His chemistry with Berguzar Korel is on point, I’m sure in part thanks to their real life chemistry*. The ‘children’ do a good job, though Hilal (the younger, naively patriotic daughter) at times overdoes the emotion and gets on the nerves. But it’s forgivable for the larger cause. The villains are appropriately menacing and maniacal – Onur Taylak (Tevfik) and Okan Yalabik (Charles Hamilton) in their respective roles.

Watch if: you want an epic but relatable tale, some great acting, and a minor lesson in Meditteranean politics of WW1.

Don’t watch if: you’re not into patriotism as a theme (really, just don’t bother), can’t handle some OTT emotion, and prefer your stories more grey than clearly black and white.

Watch on: aaah… currently unavailable to stream, you’ll have to source this on via youtube/torrent/other similar sources.

*hey, just hoping they have a great marriage in real life, sans the drama.