‘Wrong Rosary’: Where the wild roses cannot grow

“Wrong Rosary” is up-and-coming film director Mahmut Fazıl Coşkun's first feature directing effort, and it has achieved success after its world premiere at the 2009 Rotterdam International Film Festival, taking along the way the best director and screenplay prize at the İstanbul Film Festival in April.

Musa (Nadir Sarıbacak), a young muezzin, has recently arrived in İstanbul for his first post from his hometown of Beypazarı in Central Anatolia. The neighborhood that Musa is sent to in the large city is Galata -- those who are familiar with the environs of İstanbul will recall that this is one of the most multicultural areas of the city and home to numerous mosques and churches. Then again, maybe we should remind ourselves that Musa's name is not really a coincidence, either -- as Musa is the Turkish version of Moses.

Musa, despite being a quiet and taciturn man, is amazed with the hustling and bustling of the city, but most importantly he is amazed by the likes of a young woman who lives next door in the historic building they inhabit. With the lust and shame of a voyeur, Musa cannot help himself from watching the beautiful Clara (Görkem Yeltan), who turns out to be a devout Christian preparing to become a nun.

So, yes, the situation is obvious, and many audience members might initially think that the idea of a muezzin and a nun falling in love is either too raunchy to handle or too Richard Chamberlain of the “Thorn Birds” sort. But the timidity of both the characters and their ineptitude at looking at each other straight in the face brings a certain comedic, humanistic and realistic approach to the plot, which could otherwise seem like a Harlequin novel.

When Musa also takes on a side job as the assistant of a second-hand bookseller, Yakup (Ersan Uysal), things get even more complicated. (I also can't help myself from thinking of the biblical figure Jacob.) Yakup is also interested in Clara, not like the love-struck puppy Musa is, but on a more paternal level. As the three of them become close friends -- well, if you can call them friends since most of the time they just enjoy each other's company without much talk -- the secrets that they all keep will either be eventually revealed or kept in the vault forever. And throughout the film, we will ponder whether Musa, despite all the wrong circumstances and hence the wrong rosaries, will ever confess to Clara that he is in awe of her. We also wonder whether we will ever find out the reason of that all-knowing Mona Lisa smile on Clara's face.

Perhaps yes, perhaps no. Yet, one thing is for sure about Musa, his sojourn in İstanbul will leave him forever a changed man.

The most charming element about “Wrong Rosary” is the way it refuses to take itself too seriously, yet creates a melancholic atmosphere that is delicately woven where the characters roam freely and comfortably. All seems real, nothing contrived.

One of the funniest and saddest moments is when Musa visits the imam of his mosque, when the imam asks him whether he has found a lady to marry, Musa answers nay, but when the imam sees through him, his response becomes, “Well son, as long as she is devout, you have no problems.” Sarıbacak's dumbfounded expression is priceless.

With “Wrong Rosary,” director Coşkun realizes a filmic momentum without ever seeming pretentious or didactic; he proves to us that showing the personification of Christianity and Islam peacefully coexisting in the same environment is a possibility, despite the impossibility of the love between its two main characters.

And all the while, Coşkun and his screenwriters (Tarık Tufan, Görkem Yeltan, Bektaş Topaloğlu) manage to create a subtle black comedy on the human condition as they walk the thin line that separates schmaltz from genuineness and at the same time refrain from creating simple religious stereotypes. “Wrong Rosary” is one of the must-see Turkish films of the year.