More (2017) User Reviews

Profound, beautiful, sad and important from debuting director

[OJT · 8/10 · 17 November 2017]

Daha, or in English More, is a near master piece of a Turkish movie, made by first time director Onur Saylak, which is an actor with some very good films in his portfolio. He is also a very good director, this film proves.

We meet 14 year old Gaza. Quite grown for his age, and we soon get to know why. He lives alone with his father which is a criminal, earning his money on human trade with refugees, forcing Gaza to join in as his co-worker. Gaza doesn't like this, and already in the opening of the film we get to know that the father is regarding himself as the most important man in the world. He's an upright swine, also treating his son like trash.

The film is beautifully filmed, and we have both great acting and great scenery, mixed with some nasty stuff when it comes to moral.

The film is very recommended, and even though it is severe, I would say anyone above twelve could watch it without being traumatized. This film gives out much reality about the refugee shipping over to Europe, and is well worth a watch.

Young Hayat Van Eck does a phenomenal job as young Gaza, but also the disgusting father is well played by Ahmet Mümtaz Taylan. Recommended!

Great directorial debut. Shows there is more to come from Onur Saylak.

[mert-miz · 7/10 · 15 December 2020]

This was a great debut for Onur Saylak's career. Acting of Ahmet Mümtaz Taylan and Hayat van Eck is so amazing that they draw you towards their character easily. I loved Tuba Büyüküstün's portrayal of a Syrian refugee which showed how they try to survive. The story had so many great mesagges in it showing how the things we go through when we are young affect our character. The coloring and lighting of the movie was great especially the ones where Ahad was driving his truck.

Gaza's character could have been written better as I think that during some moments that would help his character progress he didn't act the way he should have and most of the scenes where we were about to see the movie and the characters progress were meaninglessly cut which these were the biggest problems of the movie that ruined its potential. There were so many great shots but there were so many bad ones aswell especially some handheld shots.

The movie had so much potential but it is still a great movie that gives its message with fantastic acting.

Taut drama about people trafficking

[shakercoola · 7/10 · 3 November 2018]

A Turkish drama; A story set on the Aegean coast of Turkey about a 14 year old boy, full of promise, dragged down to the level of his brutal father who is a people trafficker. There are missteps such as a preachy, sporadic voiceover which only reduces the tension and lessens the drama. But, this is an impressive film about the ever-worsening mindset of a criminal who is intent on trying to control an out-of-control situation and the pathway of criminality it carves for good, impressionable people in their purview.

i found it okay

[cagdasateser · 7/10 · 15 January 2021]

Ahmet Mümtaz Taylan was great in this one but overall i found the film very average. the climax wasnt that schoking or effective on me i wasnt thrilled

Amazing and Haunting!!!

[gokselll · 10/10 · 18 July 2019]

First of all, "Daha" is very very upper than I expected. Director Onur Saylak is, interestingly, a very popular actor in Turkey. Such popularity despite his filmography which mostly contains "art movies" is a consequence of Saylak's existence in popular Tv-series in addition to cinema. Though I like his acting performances and most of movie projects he placed, I didn't expect such a susccesful experiment from his first director seat.

Daha is a very very stronge movie by meaning of character improvement, visual aesthetic, cinematography, political references, knitted plotting, balanced tension and connection way to reality.

The movie is inspired by a famous novel. I know the novelist Hakan Günday due to his first novel but I haven't read Daha, yet. So, I can't estimate any link between the movie and the novel. But, Daha is an inspired movie rather than novel adaptation. So, it's not false to evaluate this movie as an independent production.

Applaud to Onur Saylak, his team and actors/actresses!

The ultimate war between Cronus and Zeus

[merveswiss · 8/10 · 19 January 2022]

The war held between Cronus and Zeus, which ends up with the thriumph of Zeus, in expense of a crueller and harsher God. And it again takes place in the Aegean seesides.

The father Ahad (meaning one) is the only person and relative in Gaza's life. The father who reigns over the Middle Eastern fugitives means a lot to the son. When the first party of fugitives brought to the basement of the house, which is Olympicly situated over the rocks, the father orders them "to eat whatever brought, to sleep, to defecate into the bucket and to wait till his call". When later in the film it comes to the second party of the fugitives its Gaza's turn to order them with the same words and gestures of the father. But we realize that they don't have fare share neither of the money nor of the name and reputation. The father puts Gaza's name on the lorry but in smaller letters and below the father's name. And he never gives him the money he earns from the work he has done. On the contrary, the father puts the blame the death of the child belongs to the women he raped (depicted as Cronus devoured all of his sons and daughters after their birth) on Gaza. Gaza's discontent can be observed in the scene where they are dining on the two ends of a table, where the father is on a big comfortable chair while Gaza is on a small one (Later Gaza will sit on the big chair).

Dating the prostitut is also the beginning of the Gaza's rise in opposition, because the prostitut says "when the setted alarm bells ringing it will be too late to do something, if you are going to do something it has to be now".

Gaza knows he is cleverer than his father, because he achieved in his school and also his application for a better school is already granted. He tries to get out of his father's world and starts his own, but this is also hindered.

Then first, he tries to mingle with the people (the fugitives); he sleeps in the basement, listens their music, watches their dances, even talks to one of them (Ahra). But one night he witnesses that she is kissing the gendarma commander. The acts of corrupted commander and her infidelity breaks Gaza's faith on men, too. His rage rises. Following this travma he turns more destructive into himself and to the others. One of his destructive attempts he founds the hide, where his father uses for money. He takes the money for himself, because he believes it is his right to have. He pays his father's business partners for murdering his father. The father's ex- , Gaza's new- business partners are nothing other than Cyclopes, who is helping Zeus winning the battle over Cronus, throwing big rocks in the battle. We see in the film how one of the guys puts a big rock onto the father's grave.

In the end of the film Gaza (who turned to Zeus) puts borders in the basement, rules over the people harsher and crueller than his father had done.

I like the film as a good analogy of the Cronus vs Zeus battle of power. However, it's so pesimist almost as a solid example of a learned helplessness.

A big earthquake, which is splitting the rocks where the house and basement located and big waves triggered by the earthquake might swept all this stage. The triumph of Terra Mater might make the film an example of contamprary art. The film is more like a simple statement of how patriarch keeps reproducing itself without any criticism to it.