The Museum Of Innocence is too long. Nine episodes could have been reduced to six, with some slick editing, observes A Ganesh Nadar.
Key Points
- The Museum Of Innocence series is based on Nobel Laureate Orhan Pamuk’s novel.
- Eighteen years after the book was published, The Museum of Innocence dropped on Netflix.
- The Museum Of Innocence is about a young wealthy man who is in love with two women at the same time.
Orhan Pamuk was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2006. His novel The Museum of Innocence was published in 2008. Pamuk opened a Museum of Innocence in Istanbul in 2012. The museum had small objects used by a young lady, like hair pins, combs, salt dispensers, clothes and also 4,213 cigarette butts that she is supposed to have smoked.
Eighteen years after the book was published, The Museum of Innocence dropped on Netflix. Though the original is in Turkish, you can watch it in English as well as with English subtitles.
What The Museum Of Innocence is about
The Museum Of Innocence is about a young wealthy man Kemel (Onur Unsal), who is in love with two women at the same time. Sibel (Oya Unustasi) is rich and closer to his age while Fusun (Eylui Kandemir) is poor and an 18-year-old teenager.
Though he claims to be in love with both women, there is a difference in the intensity of love.
With Sibel, they are a normal, happy-go-lucky couple, moving among the elite of Istanbul in the 1970s.
With Fusun, the love is tinged with obsession and lust.
When he gets engaged to Sibel, he invites Fusun to the engagement party because she also happens to be a distant cousin. At the party, Fusun is heartbroken and dances with other men. The irony is not lost on the viewer that while Kemal is getting engaged to another woman, he gets jealous of Fusun dancing with other men.
It is almost as if Kemal is telling Fusun that Sibel will be my wife and you will be my mistress. Fusun doesn’t accept this role and vanishes from his life.
The love triangle
Director Zaynep Gunay has done a very good job because each character acts so well that you feel they are living their roles, and not acting.
Kemal, as the brooding lover obsessed with a young girl, is restrained in his acting. His sorrow is conveyed with his eyes, not by hysterics.
Sibel is gorgeous girl and totally in love with Kemal.
When Fusun vanishes, Kemal is heartbroken and in a moment of candour, admits to Sibel about their affair.
Sibel decides that they should live together and she would make him forget about Fusun. Living together, even if they are engaged, leads to tongues wagging in 1970s Istanbul.
The story depicts two distinct societies at the time — one for the rich and the other for the poor. Kemal crosses from the rich to the poor with ease, but when Fusun tries to do the same, it is not so easy.
Happily ever after?
Kemal searches for Fusun and just when you have given up on him ever finding her, she invites him for dinner.
Fusun is now married to a script writer, who wants to be a director.
The couple want Kemal to finance their movie, where she will be the star.
Every time they meet, Kemal collects small objects she uses and takes it back to the apartment where they used to meet earlier. Those objects finally form the Museum of Innocence.
Every episode has songs where the music is simple and the lyrics are appropriate for the scene that is unfolding. The lyrics help take the story forward.
As the series moves along, Kemal narrates the story for the audience. As he and Fusun drive across Europe he narrates, ‘A love story with a happy ending deserves only a few lines’ and you are left wondering what is going to happen next.
The Museum of Obsession
The series is too long. Nine episodes could have been reduced to six, with some slick editing.
A more appropriate title would perhaps be The Museum of Obsession.
The Museum of Innocence streams on Netflix.
The Museum of Innocence Review Rediff Rating:
https://www.rediff.com/movies/review/obsessive-love-in-the-museum-of-innocence/20260228.htm