User Reviews

Barda is the next attempt of director Serdar Akar. He has made some remarkable films like "Gemide" and "Dar Alanda Kisa Paslasmalar". With his new step, he tries to bring forth the violence in the Turkish society.

A group of young and gonna-be part of high society friends, gather at a bar they frequently visit. One night, some guys looking awfully scary and dangerous enters and these two classes known to live together on the streets are left to fight trapped in a bar...

Well, to be honest, this is not the best picture from director Akar. Especially the characters of the youngsters are not accordingly established. The court scenes are far from being realistic. Especially the young actors does not seem to be ready for their parts. But the main issue here is that Turkish cinema and Turkish directors do not generally operate as artists who carries on their duty as an observer of the society. This film drives straight into that misty field...

The violence is everywhere in Turkey as well as the world, in the streets, in the metro, at the schools etc. but this somehow seems to be unseen by the Turkish cinema. Because, people would love to sleep and think that everything's going fine as long as the tragedy doesn't touch them. But that's not true at all. The truth is out there, in this film. Although it has some major negative sides, it's a brave step trying to show the reality...

Based upon a true story, what's happening is horrible, unbelievable and unacceptable. But you gotta see it to get to do something about it...

****** spoiler *********

By the way, at the ending of the film, the guys in the jail attacking the others are Zeki Demirkubuz, Cagan Irmak and Serdar Akar himself (the other two being some important Turkish directors). Seems like, the artists are trying to attack the mentality behind these horrible acts. Bad dream, nice try...

when i saw it in a dark saloon. I was really scared.. Nice young actors and 5 great bad guys. They are all perfectly described.. Especially Nejat Isler.. He is really strong in this movie. The violence is used very good in the film. Based on a true story is the scariest part of the film. When you watch it you keep on thinking "Dude.. These are all real...Some people have really been beaten like this and some girls were raped in front of their boyfriends.." So if you are ready to see some real violence..I mean Real! ( because these kinds of things happen in world ) Watch "Barda"..Also if you like it you can watch " Gemide " and "Lalelide Bir Azize" too..

I saw this movie in Balçova, Izmir in a theater with a very bad sound and screen quality! So, i highly recommend you to watch this movie in a better theater! While watching the movie, i realized that 7 or 8 couples left the cinema because of its irritating violent scenes which reminded me Haneke's "Funny Games" but Barda is really bloody and realistic. As far as i know, this is one of the most hardest Turkish film with its hardcore torture scenes and vulgar, parental advisory language . So, that's the first reason for you to watch this movie. But, what disappoints me is its very poor final. Because it was completely unnecessary to give people "moral lessons or any misleading thoughts" by making the tortures killed in jail. If the director would have finalized the film without showing us the revenge, this could have been one of the "cult" movie ever made!!! When the torturers were killed in the jail (by zeki demirkubuz..etc), some people in the theater applauded as a reaction of convenience. That was because of moral catharsis that the director made his fatal error by finalizing the film like this. But it is still very promising and unforgettable movie that should be really seen by any cinema lovers! But, don't go with your sweetheart!!!!!

I have mixed feelings about this film. It is clearly not a strong movie in terms of technique or form in cinema - although not too bad, either. But, that's not the reason why I think of it as controversial. I rather felt uneasy about the story it tells, the kind of scenes the director chose to shoot to tell the story and the causal links he established between violent action and its possible motivating grounds. First of all, I should note that this movie is based on a real event that happened in Ankara/Turkey in 1997 - so it's not fiction. The director has chosen to present violence in all its brutality and that makes the movie very disturbing for its audience. Throughout the movie I kept thinking whether there would be another way of telling such a violent story without actually turning violence into a spectacle. Assuming that the audience is ignorant about the violence that prevails in Turkish society, perhaps the director has chosen to confront them with an extreme level of violence. However, this runs the risk of turning violence into an event to watch or observe - once again making the audience an external element to the story. In my view, if the director really wants to confront the audience/the society, than he'd need to find a way to make them part of the story and he could do this by presenting violence as a sociological phenomenon, not as an extraordinary, unusual, isolated case. And here lies the importance of the causal link between violent action and the motivation behind it. The kind of explanation for violent action presented in the movie is not clear. I was very confused about the causality the director attempts to establish between violence and the motivation behind it. Does the director see the persecutors as some sort of lumpenproleteriat? Are their violent acts a consequence of the rage against middle classes? Does their class position justify it? Or, are these people just bunch of ruffians on drugs? Is it being on drugs that makes the persecutors violent? Or, is it because of their class position? Does their access to drugs have anything to do with their class position? Or, are they just bad people having fun(!)? Or a mixture of all these factors? It looks like, the director sees some connection between these, but his stance is obscure. I think that makes the narrative unclear throughout the whole movie, and indeed, this fuzziness made me question why I was watching all this violence? Where am I in this movie? Is it just an extreme, unusual story that is almost unlikely to happen to me, or is there a connection between my class position, my gender, my morality etc. and such violence? A director, so willing and so explicit about giving messages could have been much unequivocal on that! I was disturbed by violence, but I didn't like to be confronted only (!) by its brutality. If the director wants to confront the audience for being ignorant to the violence around, then he'd have to find a way to tell the social story of violence, not just show violence. Overall, I think violence in all its sorts definitely needs to be a subject to tackle with in cinema and I liked this movie for engaging me in these questions, but I also think that because it is such a vulnerable issue, the directors should be looking for ways to confront the audience without turning violence into a spectacle external to the audience.

Basically this movie tells us the most horrifying thing that can happen to you in a bar with your friends. The teens in the movie are quite innocent, and absolutely do not guess that; people can be that much barbarian and heartless. A small excuse can start this brutality and exactly happens like this in the movie.

You have to be stabilized and strong when you are watching this movie because it contains rapes,cutoffs,beating apparently. And the acting is very realistic which can disturb you, maybe can turn you as nightmares.

They shot the film in a bar at Taksim, when I pass from there I feel horrified.

However at the end, you calmed down a little bit, at least you see 'crime does not pay'

There are hundreds of films containing violence, but I think the most important feature that distinguishes Barda from these films is that it produces local theses for the violence that has increased in recent years. None of us think that the scenes we watch actually happened, we just say "it's just a movie" and when the movie is over, maybe we think about it all for a few minutes. That's it... The fact that the subject that inspired the movie Barda is completely real makes this movie even more meaningful. It's a movie that gives messages and needs to be learned.

The bad guys in the movie are a group of outcasts who are outside the system.

This gang, devoid of morality, emotion and empathy, takes revenge through violence on the rich babies they see as enemies or envy... Exhaustist Selim, the main hero of the villains, expresses their exclusion from the system, their exclusion, and their repulsion with the following words: ''- Why do I come to this bar in the dead of night? Ha?

Because if I came any other time, the man at the door wouldn't let me in.

He doesn't like my appearance, he doesn't like my movements, he doesn't like my speech.

I wish I haven't watched even one part of this movie. There is nothing special but violence, rape and great amount of blood. It was incredibly disgusting. I do think that the movie also had the worst reputation ever by the viewers. As far as I remember, it was on theaters only for two weeks. What an unfeasible investment!!! I've seen it on TV, I do tried to be patient during the movie just to be able to criticize in the end. Wathcing the whole movie may be the best way to torture yourself :) I remember the movie Clockwork Orange , and the leading actor who was sentenced to watch such war violence scenes for hours without being capable of closing his eyes.Turkish directors have presented a number of good films which deserve appreciation. Try any of them but "Barda"...

when i've watched "Barda" i was expecting' a quality tension movie but i was disappointed when i saw it.instead of tension i just felt boredom.the story of the movie goes like this

a group of armed bank robbers entered to a bar after the robbery.few minutes later they took few customers in the bar as hostages and after that they begun torturing them until the night's over and cops bust in and arrest all of them

That wasn't the film which makers promised in it's trailers.Film completely filled with torture,beating,rape and murder.i still wonder how could they charge people to see a humans in the movie getting tortured,humiliated and so on.

it's a waste of time if you have passion for snuff films you just can get thousands of small videos in the net and i wager they're more high quality than this low budget crap