Mustafa (2008) User Reviews

It is a simple and honest documentary unlike all the accusations.

[theflautist82 · 7/10 · 4 February 2009]

This documentary was criticized too much that i couldn't stop my self writing a comment here. Initially some people put forward that this documentary insulted Atatürk as especially demonstrating his affairs with women, smoking and drinking alcohol. Some people from the government suggested that the documentary had better be banned to community. Many students and teachers thought that the director shamed and accused him being a deceitful person and he really meant it. some others said that he must have been paid by the Armenians. Anyway, I watched the documentary from the beginning to the end carefully, being afraid of the possibility of coming across some of the accusations above. No, I am saying only no! the documentary is simple and honest. I recommend everybody from every age to watch this documentary carefully. Everybody will understand it must be seem normal to drink alcohol and smoke a cigarette in some circumstances especially after building a Turkish assembly, forming a regular military force, defending against the occupying enemy, improving the economy and creating a profane revolution against some very religious and fanatic people.

misleading & dishonest

[wasp8 · 17 July 2020]

This is sadly too misleading. It does not touch even briefly on the conspiracy (apart from the murder attempt) organized by his former friends against Atatürk's government. Also, this so-called documentary makes Istanbul government and Vahdettin seem as if they encouraged him to start the National Movement (which was clearly against their interest), like anyone would ever believe such nonsense.

Not knowing the reasons behind someone's actions leads to misunderstanding. If Can Dündar truly wished people to understand Atatürk better, he definitely would have not avoided sharing the most important factors behind his decisions. That way, he would have not demonstrated one of the greatest leaders of all time as a vengeful dictator who wanted to supress opposition parties and punish them for absolutely no reason while implementing revolutions to "get back at hodjas". The ironic thing is that those opposed people preferred a sultan reign over a republic, but no, they were the democratic ones and Atatürk was the dictator...

I'm not sure how it's supposed to be a documentary, picking the most sensational quotes out of the whole circumstance and including rumors are more like yellow journalism. So I cannot sense a good intention in this production. 1/10.

I didn't Like...

[sulensarioglu · 4/10 · 7 September 2018]

It is far from the live of a great man whom we owe our lives, our country. I didn't like it.

Pure propaganda

[Erlik_Han · 1/10 · 10 September 2021]

This movie was made by Can Dundar who has a bruning hatred for Ataturk and used to work with a radical Islamist cult to try and turn Turkey into an Iran style theocratic dictatorship. It's full of inaccuracies, misrepresentations but also outright lies.

Look no man was perfect. No one is upset because Ataturk isn't being portrayed as some sort of flawless man. But this is just pure nonsense written and made by a bunch of people who have an obsessive grudge against Ataturk and the secular republic he founded.

If you want to learn about Ataturk, read the books of Andrew Mango, or Ilber Ortayli (Prof Ilber's books have English translations)

You'll have to wait more for a great movie on Atatürk

[elsinefilo · 23 November 2008]

When Goran Bregovic(in Antalya premiere of the movie)told the NTV reporter :" Can did something great. People will get to know this great man better with his weaknesses, with his human side" it did indeed intrigue me so I decided to see the movie in the theater though I don't like going to documentaries. The movie surely arose a furore whether this could be really the "Ataturk" they know or they want to know.If Can Dündar(the director and the writer of the movie) did not have a spotless secular career he may have had to deal with more blunt,braying criticism, even now he had to breast a storm of criticism. Though some like the 'Mustafa' presented by Dündar with his weaknesses,with his love affairs,with his fear of darkness, others thought the movie made him look like a dictator. Even the leading mobile operator Turkcell refrained from being one of the corporate sponsors on the grounds that it did not want to annoy its sensitive subscribers. As for me, I did not like the movie not because it was part of a Western-backed plot to weaken Turkey's Kemalist army and rise "enlightened Islam" in favor of "Kemalist secularism" but because it did not arouse a feeling in me that would make me humanize Ataturk.What I would like to know more about Ataturk's daily life should not be just consisted of the fact that--he smoked three packages of cigarettes every day,he drank raki every day,ha was constantly concerned about being forgotten after his death, he could not deal with the criticism and sent even his companions in arms to the gallows,he was uninformed and ignorant of the situation of his own citizens because of his having been surrounded by sycophants, he had his own sculpture erected etc.." I am not saying that he did not do these things. I am not saying he was a womanizer because there were many women in his life. I am not saying that all those statues, busts and flags have created a better Ataturk full of human quality...still he was a man of substance who re-created a nation out of her ashes though he just sounds like a cold leader in the 'official'context with the way he is bogged down in official school text-books now.Though the movie is a step to break this 'imaginary official construct'-still I did not like the movie...When I watched the movie "Mustafa" I did not feel like I got any human qualities either. There should have been something more of substance that justifies some of his actions. Just a few cold sentences in a voice over was not enough for me. I may not be making sense for some people but let me put it this way; when I watched "Der Untergang" I really felt that Hitler was a human but Mustafa did not stir a feeling...not even close to it...My mind did go at a complete tangent in comparison with the other.Maybe someday we could make a great movie on Ataturk, not by blending his own letters and photographs(only chosen by personal preference)with re-enactments(at some points played by a Greek actor),but by reconstructing his life from a different way of presentation(through the eyes of independence ghazis for instance) After all nobody denies the facts the movie is interwoven around, but the way it is presented outrages most--with the two million euros spent on this flick.