Synopsis: Three friends, bald Hasan, Ali the wrestler and Yusuf arrive from their village near Sivas by train in Adana (the city lying in the middle of the fertile Çukurova plain and delta) and start working in a cotton factory. Everywhere they encounter cruel overseers and bosses, practical enslavement of the workers who are cheated of their salary, oppression and harassment of the women workers. They take pity on a lingering and dying worker, help him to the toilet, give him some soup.
Later they leave the factory to work on a building site, Ali falls in love with a girl and leaves with her. Later she turns prostitute. In the final scenes they work on the wheat fields, Ali is now promoted to drive the tractor. He loses his arm in an accident, his boss refuses to drive him to the hospital, but returns with the gendarmes and accuses the workers of revolt. Ali is dead by then. A fellow worker supports this false accusation. Another worker who had deserted earlier, sets the fields in flames, this also is attributed to the workers. The remaining two friend return to their village.
Uploaded by noirama for KG.
IMDB I've qualified this as VHSrip, even though this may have been ripped from the recent DVD. This is what I posted to KG:
I've just watched the film for the first time. Although the video and audio quality is pretty low (an almost constant humming or hiss), I found the film more powerful than anything Yılmaz Güney ever did (or was allowed to shoot). The production and financing must have been a nightmare, the film won a few prices in Turkey and abroad in 1980/81, was then forbidden in Turkey and the negative illegally confiscated. Later the director got hold of a print in a Swedish depot and had it restored, it was screened in Turkish cinemas in May 2008. Since this must be a rip of the DVD that has has come out subsequently, I guess the print was in a very bad condition. But I even liked the washed-out colours and low resolution of the rip, the cinematography is very authentic and beautiful, great music too and the post-dubbing is unobtrusive. There is a strong socialist message in the film, but I didn't understand all the heated discussions among the workers.
The film's title BEREKETLİ TOPRAKLAR ÜZERİNDE ("On rich, plentiful soil") comes from a quotation by Orhan Kemal who wrote the novel from which the film was taken. End credits quotation:
"Dikkat ettim de Çukurova halâ
BEREKETLİ TOPRAKLAR ÜZERİNDE nin
Çukurovası. Bin yıldır bu böyle.
Orhan Kemal
29-9-1968"
("I am aware that the Çukurova is still sitting on rich and fertile soil, as it had been for a thousand years.")
Some Turkish linksdivx forever:
http://www.divxforevertr.com/index.php?act=ed2k&CODE=07&rid=82330divx planet:
http://forum.divxplanet.com/index.php?showtopic=111346gaxxi.com:
http://www.gaxxi.com/40haber/yazi/bereketli-topraklar-uzerindedirector´s interview:
http://www.dizifilm.com/forum/archive/index.php/t-52482.htmlwikipedia:
http://tr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bereketli_Topraklar_%C3%9Czerinde_%28film%29Caps:
