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Berdel

Berdel

Movie · 1990 · 9 people

Atıf Yılmaz directed Berdel, a Turkish drama from 1990. Its title is the rural exchange marriage, in which two households give each other a daughter, and the film uses that custom to show how tradition boxes women in. The screenplay is credited to Sevgi Saygı, Atıf Yılmaz and Yıldırım Türker. German-language editions carry the title Die zweite Frau.

At the center is Hanım, played by Türkân Şoray, a woman devoted to her husband and home who suffers because five births have produced no son. Her husband Ömer, played by Tarık Akan, loves her but wants a male heir, and turns to what the region treats as an ordinary remedy: a second wife. He cannot pay the bride price, so he offers one of his daughters to the father of the woman he wants. That daughter, fifteen-year-old Beyaz, is played by Mine Çayıroğlu; she gives up the future she imagined with the boy she loves and is sent to an elderly, sick man. The pain does not stop with the swap.

The cast also includes Füsun Demirel, Levend Yılmaz, Gülşen Tuncer, Taner Barlas and Suzan Kardeş. Bülent Hekimoğlu and Gülseven Güven Yaşer produced it for Tapev and STM Film, with Erdal Kahraman on cinematography and Selim Atakan on music.

DirectorAtıf Yılmaz
Production companyTapev, STM Film
Berdel Berdel Berdel

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Cast

Füsun Demirel Füsun Demirel Actor · 68 years old Fatma Gülşen Tuncer Film actor · 81 years old Hanife Mine Çayıroğlu Mine Çayıroğlu Actor · 48 years old Beyaz Taner Barlas Taner Barlas Actor · 79 years old Hıdır Tarık Akan Tarık Akan Actor · died at 66 Ömer Türkân Şoray Türkân Şoray Actor · 81 years old Hanım Levend Yılmaz Levend Yılmaz Actor · 77 years old Suzan Kardeş Suzan Kardeş Actor · 66 years old Cennet Kamran Usluer Kamran Usluer Actor · died at 67

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Through different eyes

History & Society Lens Asks about the period, the social background and what the work reflects.

Berdel takes its name from the exchange marriage in which two households give each other a daughter, and uses the custom to show how it hems in women's lives in a rural region. Hanım, who suffers because five births have brought no son; her husband Ömer, who wants a male heir; and Beyaz, sent at fifteen as a bride to an elderly, sick man: all of them lose, in different ways, inside the same order. The film lays bare the economic and social arithmetic behind the bride price and the custom of a second wife, which the region treats as ordinary. By drawing Ömer not as a villain but as a man who loves his wife yet still takes the path tradition offers, it avoids a one-dimensional indictment.

Yeşilçam Nostalgic A viewer raised on the classics, looking for warm storytelling and strong acting.

Seeing Türkan Şoray and Tarık Akan in the same film is always a small celebration for anyone raised on Yeşilçam. But Berdel carries not the warmth of those old love stories but a bitter truth. Atıf Yılmaz tells Hanım's silent despair in a way that touches the heart, and Şoray plays that pain without raising her voice, holding it inside. Young Beyaz being torn from the dreams she shared with the boy she loves leaves a lump in the throat. It isn't an easy evening film, nor one you'll recall with simple pleasure, yet it is one of those works that remind us cinema has a conscience.

Family Viewer Asks whether the whole household can watch it; cares about humour and heart.

Berdel is a heavy film and not suitable for children. A fifteen-year-old girl sent as a bride to an old, sick man and a mother crushed because she has no son make for hard moments to watch. For adults and high-school-age teens, though, it is thought-provoking and a good chance to talk about how much daughters are worth. If you watch it as a family, set aside time to talk about it afterwards.

These are not reader reviews: they are short editorial takes written from different viewer perspectives with AI assistance. Reader reviews are below.

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