while we're all into brokeback mountain, turkey is into a completely different genre of movie. it's a movie where some of the incidents are based, in part, on real events, it's the most expensive film ever made in turkey and it's also breaking box office records. the name of the film is "valley of the wolves - iraq" and it's an action film which involves "turkish gunmen who seek revenge against a tyrannical occupying army".

but what a coincidence. the commander who has invaded is not some illegitimate terrorist group, but sam (ha ha ha) and he's american. and it's the americans who get punished for offending turkish and iraqi pride & honor.

so there are scenes about killing iraqis and inmates chained and hooded and so on and so forth based on the abu ghraib pics. but there are scenes which show, for example, an american jewish surgeon removing body organs from inmates and shipping them to ny, london and israel for transplants - which the screenwriter also claimed were inspired by real events. very very clever.

i would imagine that turkey is mad that following saddam's toppling in iraq thanks to the u.s., the kurds are enjoying a new sort of freedom and a new sort of legitimacy (the kurds previous reality is well documented here).

something's going on in turkey: last year mein kampf #1 last year, this movie #1 this year...

the entire article from the ny times here