Unsent Letters

A big sudsy romantic melodrama that starts with the homecoming of ashen-faced Cem, forced some two decades earlier to flee the town of Amasra for his political activities. He left behind him a dead identical brother and his sweetheart, Gülfem, now a married mother. Plangent and convoluted, it's cheesy fun for a while, if you adopt the vicarious interest shown by Gülfem's frivolous teenage daughter Ceren. Eventually, though, the revelations come like brickbats; and one feels unusually well-disposed to the police when they come back for seconds. (The English subtitles on the review print are some way short of lucid.