Job Discussion Forums

[Delpha]

Got this interesting article from the AP in my e-mail yesterday. . .


Thursday, February 2, 2006

ISTANBUL, Turkey (AP) -- In the most expensive Turkish movie ever made,
American soldiers in Iraq crash a wedding and pump a little
boy full of lead in front of his mother. They kill dozens of innocent people
with random machine-gun fire, shoot the groom in the
head, and drag those left alive to Abu Ghraib prison -- where a Jewish
doctor cuts out their organs, which he sells to rich people
in New York, London and Tel Aviv.

"Valley of the Wolves Iraq" -- set to open in Turkey on Friday -- feeds off
the increasingly negative feelings many Turks harbor
toward their longtime NATO allies: Americans. The movie, which reportedly
cost about $10 million (8.3 million), is a work of
fiction and does not purport to level allegations against American troops.
It is part of a genre of popular culture in Turkey that demonizes the United States.

The film comes on the heels of a novel, "Metal Storm," about a war between Turkey and the U.S., which has been a best-seller for
months. One recent opinion poll revealed the depth of the hostility in
Turkey toward Americans: 53 percent of Turks who responded to
the 2005 Pew Global Attitudes survey associated Americans with the word
"rude"; 70 percent with "violent"; 68 percent with "greedy";
and 57 percent with "immoral."

Advance tickets already are selling out across Turkey for the film, which
has dialogue in Turkish, Arabic, Kurdish and English. In
addition to Turkey, the film is set to be shown in more than a dozen other
countries -- including the United States, Britain,
Germany, the Netherlands, Britain, Denmark, Russia, Egypt, Syria and
Australia. The movie's American stars are Billy Zane, who plays
a self-professed "peacekeeper sent by God," and Gary Busey as the
Jewish-American doctor.

U.S. soldiers have become hate figures in Muslim countries around the world after the unpopular war in Iraq. But here in Turkey, a
personal grudge fuels the resentment.

"Valley of the Wolves Iraq" opens with a true story: On July 4, 2003, in
Sulaymaniyah, Iraq, troops from the U.S. Army's 173rd
Airborne Brigade raided and ransacked a Turkish special forces office, threw hoods over the heads of 11 Turkish special forces
officers and held them in custody for more than two days. The Americans said they had been looking for Iraqi insurgents and unwittingly rounded up the Turks because they were not in uniform. Still, the incident damaged Turkish-U.S.. relations and hurt Turkish national pride. Turks traditionally idolize their soldiers; many enthusiastically send their sons off for mandatory military service.

In the movie, one of the Turkish special forces officers commits suicide to
save his honor. His farewell letter reaches Polat Alemdar, an elite Turkish intelligence officer who travels to northern Iraq with a small group of men to avenge the humiliation.
There they find a rogue group of U.S. soldiers led by officer Sam William
Marshall -- played by Zane. In the bloodfest that ensues,
the small band of Turks bonds with the people of Iraq and eventually ends
American atrocities there, killing Zane and his men in the
final scene.

"The scenario is great," Istanbul Mayor Kadir Topbas told The Associated
Press after the film was shown at a posh opening gala
Tuesday night. "It was very successful. But Topbas and other Turks at the
premiere weren't too concerned about how the movie would
be perceived in the United States.

"There isn't going to be a war over this," said Nefise Karatay, a Turkish
model lounging on a sofa after the premiere. "Everyone
knows that Americans have a good side. That's not what this is about."

Copyright 2006 The Associated Press.

[dmb]

Has anyone seen the tv series that the film is based on? Crap innit? I don't know what all the fuss is about.

[tekirdag]

I have watched the tv show and kind of liked it. Very violent, though!
The episode with Sharon Stone and Andy Garcia was awful. I guess those two just did it for the money.

There have been many movies with Russians, Chinese gangsters, Italian Mafia as the "bad guys" so why not a rogue group of American soldiers?

[VanIslander]

[justme]

My husband came back from that movie angry that it was pro-American!

[TeachEnglish]

Hmm.. it seems very popular to be anti-American these days. Maybe they should demonstrate, get violent, destructive and kill people. Oh.. we are talking about a movie..not cartoons.. Americans..and not Islamics.. Sorry I was confused there for a minute..

[calsimsek]

[calsimsek]

Entrailicus:

[dmb]

Don't you think it is a coincidence that photographs,which were taken 3 years ago, are released at the same time as all the current bs happening around the world with regard to the cartoons?

[calsimsek]

dmb:

[dmb]

do you think it is anyway connected with the Ashes?

[Sheikh Inal Ovar]

Undoubtedly ... it's common knowledge among the MCC secret-service that it's the root cause of every media and political move in Australia for the next 12 months ...

[TeachEnglish]

[Sheikh Inal Ovar]

It's because of people like you that Plato thought democracy to be one of the worst forms of government ...

That's Plato, not the Pluto or Bluto that evidently dominate the stories that fill the books on your book-shelf ...

[Baba Alex]