Mr. Muhsin is a beneficient, honorable, and respected man. He used to be a famous producer years before, but started to run his own business as an "organizer" to arrange singers, orchestras for weddings, parties and events since his expertise on Turkish Classical Music became less important day by day. His surname "Kanadikirik" symbolizes his character as an angel with "Broken Wings" in the era. While his all friends became figures in the music industry with their greediness and disrespect to previous artists and masters, his life turns into a mess which he barely survives, but never gives up his character as a gentleman.
One morning he enters to the building he works, he learns that he lost his office due to his assistant who had been playing gambling for six months by using the rent he was supposed to pay to the landlord. Same day, a stranger, Ali Nazik, finds him and asks his help to become a famous singer. Mr. Muhsin rejects him, but when Ali Nazik follows him to his apartment and waits for him in the middle of a street whole night, Mr. Muhsin decides to help and invites him to his house to stay for the night. But then he finds out that Ali Nazik has a great talent, and he can sing better than rising stars in the music industry; so, he decides to work with him as his producer.
When they find a few chances thanks to Mr. Muhsin's old friends in the industry, Ali Nazik's lack of experience and musical knowledge leads them to fail. Mr. Muhsin becomes his mentor and teaches everything from standing on the stage to singing. On their way to make him famous, Mr. Muhsin lacks to find his track as a producer since everything had changed in the industry. His trust on his assistant leads him to make decisions which he never wanted and results put him into a socio-cultural area which he can never survive. In the end, he realizes that being a man like that would never give him anything, but trouble. Therefore, he decides to leave not his character, but the industry he dedicated himself since it does not worth to be a part of.
As director Yavuz Turgul said, Muhsin Bey is a story of change, a story of a person who cannot settle himself to a new era which greediness and immorality became the most important qualifications to become successful in music industry. From the beginning till the last sequence, everything goes wrong in Mr. Muhsin's life. His car never starts when he needs, his assistant never does a job correctly, his ingrateful friends who owed a lot to him becomes important figures in the music industry. When Ali Nazik enters to his life, he tries to be adopted to the era. However, he fails miserably and loses everything he has; his flowers die, and his singer Ali Nazik contracts with a producer to become a arabesque music star which Mr. Muhsin never wanted him to sing. In the last sequence, he leaves everything in an arabesque music club which Ali Nazik performs as a shining star, and walkes out of there relieved. This life out of this social habitat full of incorrectness and greediness grants him happiness he was apart for a long time.
Also Yavuz Turgul is known as a director who uses "death" as a signature in his movies. His stories focus on breakingpoints which whole society faced a change and found itself in a new era, and the certain figures from the previous era loses their lives in order to represent this vile circle. However, in this movie, Mr. Muhsin can find the happiness in the end, but only when he dies as a "Producer" symbolically. He does not lose his life, but loses his business and reputation. The only way to survive in a society full of corruption might be killing his own character, but it is impossible to do for a gentleman like Mr. Muhsin; so he had to put himself apart.
PS: Late 80s were one of the hardest periods of Turkish Cinema Industry. The street known as "Yesilcam" had lost most important figures, and producers started to lose money since VHS technology and TVs pulled a massive amount of audience from the movie theatres. For this reason, producers started to use low-quality production materials from the cameras in studio to the film in the editrooms in order to reduce production costs. Even though it was one the best movies in Turkish Cinema, Muhsin Bey's copies could not survive as it deserved. In 2014, a Turkish University started a project to remaster it. However, the copies were hard to deal with and they had to remove some scenes. It was the first time a movie remastered in 4K resolution, and the job was done great. On the other hand, important scenes like Mr. Muhsin's dream in the opening scene when a Turkish Classic Music singer singing with an Alaturca orchestra, or some scenes where Mr. Muhsin struggled to start his car's engine were cut out and affected the narrative. For this reason, the old version is a moving movie that give more tears on your eyes and highly recommended to prefer.
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