A Small September Affair

A Small September Affair (Bi Küçük Eylül Meselesi) is a 2014 Turkish drama film directed by Kerem Deren and starring Engin Akyürek and Farah Zeynep Abdullah.

Plot
The movie starts with an accident of a girl Eylül (Farah Zeynep Abdullah) in Istanbul. She survives it but just one problem - Eylül cannot remember the past one month of her life that happened to be 'September'. On her insistence, her friends take her to Bozcada Island, where she was for summers in the previous month. Eylül just wants to know what happened in that past September which she cannot remember. There in Bozcada, she meets a native man called Tekin or Tek (Engin Akyürek). Tek is a very innocent soft-spoken and decent islander who is a cartoonist by profession. But he has a drawback - he is not beautiful. And this outer ugliness hides his inner beauty. Tek immediately claims to Eylül that they both fell in love with each other in the previous month. Eylül does not believe this, as she cannot accept the fact that she being a pretty Istanbul girl can fall in love with a dirty and ugly man like Tek! She runs away from him feeling scared, but Tek follows her. When he reaches her he calms her down telling her that he will not hurt her and that he is telling her the truth. As Tek hears Eylül's friend coming, he leaves after asking her to remember him. When Eylül asks him that why does he wants her to remember him, Tek replies 'Because I am not just a memory.' and leaves. Eylül's friends try to convince her about returning to Istanbul but she wants to stay.

The viewers are shown in flashback scenes, what actually happened.

In the previous month, Eylül is vacationing on Bozcada Island with her friends. Tek who paints the caravans and signboards, falls in love with her at first sight. A little girl there who is close to Tek plays a trick and gifts a hat to Eylül telling her that it is given by Tek. They look at each other for the first time then. Tek invites her to dinner which she accepts. Her friend asks her what she is doing to which Eylül replies that it won't be bad to have some fun during vacation. Tek waits for her at the dinner table which he has arranged, but she doesn't come.

Before this scene we hear Tek's conversation with his mother and get to know about him. Tek tells his mother about his inferiority complexes. He says that he is different from these civilized people, who belong to the modern world, as he is not physically beautiful like them. Being a cartoonist, his hands are always stained with paint. But he tells his mother that he has fallen in love with one from this different kind, a girl who is pretty and quite a part of that world. Tek is scared that she might reject him but also feels at the same time that Eylül will fall in love with him. With these flaws in his appearance and with his quite nature, Tek forced himself to live in a faraway island, so that he is away from the fast world, where he considers himself to be a misfit.

Nevertheless, despite of Eylül's disrespectful behavior towards him and regardless of the fact that she plays with his emotions, Tek continues to pursue her. He brings her to his simple house, which is a small wooden workshop where he does his paintings. His bed is fixed in open-air like a big swing. His kitchen and bath-tub are all set outside. Tek's house is a typical island residence. He shows her his cartoon publications. There Eylül tells him that she is a big fan of his paintings and had decided to marry the person who drew them. But she quite insultingly exclaims that she expected someone better looking than him. Tek is hurt and looks himself in the mirror and thinks that he is ugly and how can a beautiful girl like Eylül love him?

These all flashbacks and Tek reminding Eylül of their times spent together in the present day in are shown simultaneously. Tek tries to make her remember through a book in which he compiled all their meetings through his artistic drawings. He reminds her of the sunset they watched together. In the past scenes, we see that Eylül has also fallen in love with Tek. She loves his pure nature, his creativity and enjoys his company. They explore the island together, draw paintings and watch movies with Tek's puppy and the little girl.

In the present time Tek makes Eylül recall near the sea where he wrote their names on sand. She remembers and calls to him. They hug each other and Tek tells her that he missed her a lot. Then again he tells her how she taught him swimming and that how much he was scared to even dip his feet in the water but she encouraged him to go deeper and caught him when he was frightened.

All these days in the previous month of September when Eylül was staying at Tek's place, she never told her friends about him. It is because she herself is complexed to tell people of her class about the man she has fallen in love with. Eylül does love Tek but is not brave to confess it to the whole world as she fears that she will be made fun having fallen in love with a shaggy man like Tek. She has lied to her friends that she is travelling the island with some friends and will return soon.

One night during her stay at Tek's place, a friend calls Eylül. She is not near so Tek picks it up. But she quickly snatches the phone from him and tells her friend on the other end that she will be back soon. Tek listens to this and is hurt again that Eylül is not telling her people about falling in love with him. He says to her melancholy that he wishes that he was a handsome man with unstained hands so that she could have introduced him to her people with pride. Eylülsoothes him and says that she does not want any handsome man but she wants this Tek with stained hands. Tek and Eylül are in love and spent a pleasant night together.

The next morning Eylül wakes-up before Tek and puts on his stained shirt that he wears while painting. She kisses Tek good morning and tells him to get up as she will prepare breakfast herself. Eylül is dancing on music, is enjoying the beauty of Bozcada and is picking up berries. She is making breakfast but suddenly, something makes her to STOP... She is startled to see her image in the mirror. In Tek's dirty shirt and with her dry hairs and with a face without her cosmetics, she sees herself to be ugly. She looks herself in the mirror and then at Tek. She gets scared that if she continues staying here because of her love for Tek, she would become as ugly as him and will end up as an outcast, just like Tek.

This Eylül who loves life, loses her love for Tek to her love for the glamour world.

She calls her friend at that very instant and asks her to come and take her. Thus, Eylül leaves a sleeping Tek without saying a word to him. At night when she is all pretty in her party clothes and make-up and is enjoying drinks with her friends near her hotel, Tek comes to see her. Eylül is worried as she sees him fearing her truth might be exposed. She introduces him to her friends as her friend Tek. Tek asks her to come with him to their house. Eylül's friend asks Tek who he is and what does he do. Tek in his simple manner tells that he is a cartoonist and he and Eylül are both in love with each other and have spent time together. On hearing this Eylül's friend asks her that where did she find this idiot from? She remains silent and doesn't know what to say. When Tek insists her to come, her friend pushes him. Eylül stops him and makes Tek go from there.

The next day Eylül is leaving Bozcada on boat with her friends. Tek is there. He is telling her to stay and is asking her that why she is leaving him when she loves him. She is not convincing in her replies and is saying to Tek that she is like this and she told him not to take her seriously. She just wants to go away from him and leaves.

In the present day, Tek and Eylül are sitting in the same restaurant where they used to meet in the previous month. Eylül has remembered almost everything now. On hearing her friends approaching them, Tek leaves from there after giving Eylül his drawing book. She tries to stop him, but Tek wants to leaves, he somehow does not want to be with her in her friends' presence. As her friends come to her, they ask Eylül who she was with. She says that she was with Tek. Her friends are shocked and ask her what the hell she is talking about. Eylül says that she is going to Tek, she left him before but will not leave him now.

She runs away. Her friends run after her but she in a small cart drives towards Tek's cabin. She calls for him but he is nowhere. Tek’s bed is swinging in air and his puppy is strolling around. Eylül sees that little girl who actually introduced them. She asks her where is Tek. The girl replies that he is where he was. Eylül then runs towards the beach where in the sea she taught him to swim. She sees Tek standing there, with his back towards her. She goes near to him. Tek is watching constantly into the sea. Eylül says, ‘Tek, I’ve come, let’s go home.’

Then the viewers are shown the scene after Eylül left him, one month ago.

As her boat is going farther and farther, Tek goes into the sea, trying to swim and saying that he is not scared as Eylül was with him. He goes deeper and deeper and loses his balance. Tek drowns in the sea, he cannot pull himself above again as he is not a proper swimmer. Eylül in present day is seeing all this and she jumps after him into the sea.

Tek drowned and died in the sea a month back..

Eylül’s accident occurred because while going in the jeep which her friend was driving, she read Tek’s death news in the newspaper and became hysterical and started beating her friend. He lost control and the car crashed.

In present when Eylül has jumped into the sea after the Tek who drowned few weeks back there, sees his drawing pen and picks it up. When she swims up she writes her and Tek’s names on the sand, just like he wrote there in September.

From the start of the movie, Tek was already dead. It was his love for Eylül and Eylül’s love for him that she saw him reminding her of him and their love..The movie ends as a sobbing Eylül leaves the beach with Tek’s puppy.

Cast

 * Engin Akyürek - Tekin
 * Farah Zeynep Abdullah - Eylül
 * Ceren Moray - Berrak
 * Onur Tuna - Atil
 * Serra Keskin - Gülsah
 * Ege Aydan - Engin (Eylül's Father)
 * - (Eylül's Mother)