Trending topics on Twitter now and has been for last 3 days, which was Aski Memnu and if you want to know whats aski memnu mean here is for you because we had emails people was asking about and decide to post this for non Turkish speakers all over the World.
Aşk-ı Memnu (Ottoman Turkish for "The Forbidden Love") is a Turkish Romantic drama television series. It has been adapted from Halit Ziya Uşaklıgil's novel Aşk-ı Memnu and last series, final was on 2 days a go and has been watched by many Turkish people all over the World.
Hurriyet - The final episode last Thursday was announced in newspapers and on the main news on Kanal D, by the media icon Mehmet Ali Birand, who knew too well that a good portion of Turkish women, if not his highly intellectual wife Cemre, would be glued to the television to watch it. The finale took three hours; my best friend and several other women I know organized an evening around it while the “semi (or is it demi?) high society” of Istanbul bought tickets to watch it collectively and in the presence of some of the actors and actresses on a giant screen in Suada.
The Forbidden Love, or “Aşk-I Memnu,” by Halit Ziya Uşaklıgil, is a Turkish realist-naturalist novel from published in 1900. It has a very simple plot: Ambitious widow Firdevs has her eyes set on marriage with the wealthy Adnan bey (that is before the law on last names, remember) but Adnan, a widow with two children, Nihal and Bülent, chooses to marry Bihter, Firdevs’ younger daughter.
Bihter, pushed to marrying the boring old man, falls in love with Adnan’s nephew, Behlül. But the young man, after having an affair with Bihter, decides to marry her cousin, Nihal. Bihter commits suicide. The book was adapted as a tele-novella by TRT, when it was the only channel – in black and white. Famous actors, including Turkey’s wittiest woman Müjde Ar, who played the ill-fated Bihter, starred in the series.
Despite poor filming, long scenes and clumsy dialogues, it was very popular. The new series was a far cry. Directed by Hilal Sayral, the series brought together classical actors with serious theater backgrounds and young stars, modernized the whole story to fit Istanbul life in the 21st century and added many turns and twists to ensure that it would stretch to 70-plus episodes.
At one point, the “first” Bihter, Müjde Ar commented that if the story continued any longer, she was worried that Bihter would “end up in a brothel.” In the new version, the role of the tragic heroine Bihter was played by Beren Saat, who can be seen nowadays in everything from movies to deodorant advertisements.
But it was not only Ms Saat that became an icon: the jewelry shown in the movies, the clothes, the objects and particularly the sheets and table cloths of one of the sponsors, two young designers, all became very popular
Even my brother, oblivious to pop-culture, could not resist buying his wife a “Bihter necklace” by a young designer. But all good things come to an end – and most dramatically. Friday morning, a colleague, a cool-minded businesswoman, admitted that she spent the night crying as she watched the three-hour episode. When Peyker, Bihter’s artistic sister, left for the States and the two sisters hugged in tears, I was very tempted to call a friend who was leaving and say something like, “You are also like a sister to me, don’t go.”
