Muslum

Müslüm (2018) is a Turkish music drama you can watch online on iFILM. Directed by Ketche and Can Ulkay, it casts Timuçin Esen as the beloved singer Müslüm Gürses.

A boy from a dirt-poor family in southeastern Turkey carries a wound from childhood: he watched his father kill his mother and little sister. Singing becomes his only way out. By the late 1960s he adopts the stage name Gürses — "the booming voice" — and climbs his way onto the stage. Then a car wreck nearly ends him, leaving him half-deaf and altering his speech and movements for good. Rather than hide those marks, he folds them into his persona. Running alongside is his late-blooming love for the actress and singer Muhterem Nur, more than twenty years his senior.

The film is stitched from the pain Gürses poured into every performance — the reason fans called him Baba, "the Father." Esen's voice and the mournful arabesk melodies carry all 132 minutes. It suits anyone who likes unvarnished musician biopics and isn't put off by heavy subject matter. Stream Müslüm (2018) online on iFILM.