Released later on in the illustrious career of Turkish Yesilcam star Ayhan Isik, YIRMI YIL SONRA (TWENTY YEARS LATER) has him returning to his hometown of Istanbul a broken man, his integrity intact to be sure, but lacking a job, pride, and most importantly a stable family life. He endures a series of mental struggles involving his wife, daughter, and several shady business associates; he does his best to ensure a happy future, but is eventually reduced to standing in melancholy fashion on Istanbul's Galata Bridge contemplating a life devoid of prospects.
Osman F. Seden's film contains familiar elements characteristic of the Yesilcam genre - a tight focus on family life both as a source of stability and a site of social pressure; an analysis of gender roles, where Isik feels that he has a responsibility to ensure the future welfare of his family yet lacks the strength to do so; and a focus on frustration, both psychological as well as societal, as he feels that he has somehow failed everyone closest to him as well as himself.
YIRMI YIL SONRA offers a snapshot of the rhythms governing daily life in early Seventies Turkey, where community values still form the backbone of social cohesion, yet are placed under almost intolerable strain by the insidious threat of capitalism, as symbolized by several sequences involving sharp-suited business people in wheeler- dealings, followed by party-scenes in seedy clubs patronized by belly-dancers catering to the mostly male clientele. Such conflicts have been a fact of life for decades now, and have only been sharpened with the advent of more outside investment.
Stylistically speaking the film contains its own conventions, of repeated intercut close-ups followed by abrupt transitions from one location to another. Narrative coherence does not necessarily apply here; what is important is that audiences should see close-ups of their favorite stars, in sequences that rehearse previous movies (there is an overt quotation from one of Isik's earliest successes KANUN NAMINA (1952)) in this film, reminding us of the continuity of his star image.
YIRMI YIL SONRA is a film for fans, who enjoy seeing their favorite actors play the same role, but it also appeals to the subliminal desire for repetition as a form of social stability, giving people the familiar feeling of security in changing times. Through such strategies director Seden encourages a feeling of community that actively contradicts the film's basic plot.
