Madimak: Carina's Diary

The Madimak massacre of 2 July 1993 is a pitch black stain in Turkish history. It's a story of lack of tolerance, humanity and justice.

Making a movie regarding such a dramatic historical event must have been difficult but in this case it was a success.

The plot shows the two faces of society: it starts with the gentle one but it ends with the dark side. One thing is sure: the movie shows real life and luckily, however briefly, a glimpse of Alawite belief which is generally a taboo in Turkish film industry that rather evades minority (religious, ethnic, political, ...) issues.

All actors were at their best. The only minus was, in my opinion, the miscast for the leading role of Carina. Playing the role of a Dutch woman, she lacked credibility as it was clear from the begin she was not Dutch: the bad accent and her writing in German in stead of Dutch were revealed very soon. She seemed to be the sympathetic smiling girl next door during the whole film. The lack of variety of her emotions made her performance mediocre.

I thank the story writers, directors, actors and crew for making a movie that we watched with our hearts rather than our eyes.