Aside from its Istanbul setting, this Turkish crime drama initially seems very much like any typical European crime series. The leads are conflicted detectives dealing with personal issues while faced with an emerging murder spree. The urban setting, tech, and police procedures feel familiar. It’s only when the killer’s grand plan came into focus that I realized I was entering uncharted territory, revealing the reality of existence in a modern society with deep roots dating back to Biblical times.
Buy AlefTwo detectives are tasked with discovering the identity of a serial killer who is particularly inventive in his murders. When he demands publication of a religious manuscript to prevent another murder, the cops start pursuing leads that take them into ancient rituals involving oppositional branches of Muslim faith: the mystic Sufism of Turkey’s iconic whirling dervishes and the more common, hardline Islamic traditions. There are shades of The Da Vinci Code, with centuries-old tomes and artifacts holding the keys to present-day solutions, but it still feels revelatory to watch a show with such a deeply ingrained exploration of religious faith, especially when the parameters of that faith are fairly unfamiliar to most Western viewers. The show isn’t preachy in any way, but its ancient Islamic underpinnings make it a particularly fascinating take on the crime-drama formula.
As opposed to most buddy-cop setups that pit diametrically different personalities together, the leads here have far more in common than not. Aside from a few decades separating them in age, the characters are both grieving lost loved ones and glumly going through the motions at work, while the actors are both methodical and stoic, rarely registering any emotion. That leaves the thespian heavy lifting to co-star Melisa Sözen, so impressive in Nuri Bilge Ceylan’s Palme d’or-winning Winter Sleep, and a standout here once again. The cop duo riffs on the Lethal Weapon formula, with Kemal (Kenan Imirzalioglu) the outsider learning the precinct ropes and Settar (Ahmet Mümtaz Taylan) the retiring veteran who is too old for this shit. However, with neither of them having much of a pulse or differentiation, Sözen shines in her limited time as Kemal’s potential love interest and link to the shadowy origins of the mystery.
The DVD set collects the eight-episode season on two discs in a standard case. It’s a fairly bare-bones collection, but the worst part is lack of availability on Blu-ray. The series has remarkably high production values with superb cinematography, but with much of the action set at night the DVDs struggle to provide adequate clarity at times. While a more robust viewing option is available for MHz Choice streaming subscribers, physical-media enthusiasts are stuck with DVD.
The series continued into a second season a few years ago with an entirely new cast, much like HBO’s True Detective, but based on its ratings it appears to have missed the high mark of season one. While we may never get season two here, and we can’t fully appreciate season one’s technical prowess on DVD, MHz Choice is to be commended for bringing this stellar import to the U.S. market.
