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Börü (translated as “Wolf”) makes its debut on Netflix, a series that tells the story of a Turkish commando of the same name, committed to saving the homeland from the dangers that surround it.
Börü
“Members of a police special operations unit carry out dangerous missions across Turkey, facing peril and tragedy, in the field and in the family.”
This is the description of Netflix which translates into a heart-pounding action series with attention to the smallest details. The high budget allowed Turkish cinema to show its full potential, thus building a great product. What, however, could make the nose turn up a bit, however, is precisely the overly “painstaking” care.
Turkish spirit
Let me be clear: it is normal for a series that tells of a “semi-military” group to be biased, the problem is the amount of content that points in that direction. References are everywhere and many of them are blatant for anyone who knows Turkey at all. From character names, to tattoos and even football, everything revolves around one thing: the celebration of Turkism and Atatürk.
However, one of the things that we did not appreciate was the desire to make it “linked to current events” at all costs. Let’s be clear: we are not taking anyone’s side but the first episode ends with “Gülen’s mad dogs”, the mistake for us was there. Not even the choice to speak openly about PKK excites us, but there it is more understandable since for the Turkish police they are terrorists. The problem, however, lies in placing a political opponent of Erdoğan as the “sworn enemy of the country”, we would have definitely preferred more veiled references to the whole.
Trouble at Netflix?
Let this be clear too: the series has conquered us and we can’t wait to finish it all, but Netflix has undoubtedly made a particular choice. We all agree on quality, but a minimum of sensitivity in the names was enough to make Börü a truly incredible product and all in all unassailable for the patriotic messages it transmits. Turkey is a country with a much stronger national identity than Italy and things of this type are received in a different way, we would have preferred just a little more imagination on the names of the enemies.
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