What if E.T. landed in Turkiye, no one gave a shit, and he was also gay?
That's the plot of the movie Homoti, a 1987 film that promises both nonstop slapstick "fish-out-of-water" comedy and a touching portrayal of the struggles of gay life in Turkiye in the mid-80s, and delivers on neither of them. Homoti is a lot like the goofy, zero budget films you make with your friends in college, except you and your friends looked like you were having fun.
"Homoti" is not a Turkish word. Google Translate asks if you want to translate to Estonian, where it just means "gay," but as it's a gay-positive film, it might be a play on "Homo E.T." And if it gave itself permission to explore that idea, it might be a fun film — a zero-budget, filmed on an out-of-focus Viewmaster, but a fun film. Instead, Homoti (the main E.T. character) mostly stays on the couch and moans about how he has feelings for the main character that are not reciprocated. This subplot gets lost, because the writer/actor/director Müjdat Gezen decided that populating his film with goofy characters who do crappy, unfunny schtick was more valuable than actually making a social point.
The film opens with a bang: the theme song to Jesus Christ Superstar. Pay attention, film school students: The way to get the audience's attention in the first 10 seconds of your film is to get Andrew Lloyd Webber to compose you a theme song. If he is not available, then his music is. And if you're filming in Turkiye, no one is going to dare stop you because you probably have a gun (military service is compulsory in Turkiye).
Then we spend time panning over a 1980's Turkish apartment, shot on cloudy video, occasionally with the videographer's shadow visible, but not often, so it does have that going for it. As this video tour of wall art and a stereo ends, we meet our main character, Ali Bey, as he gets on his three-wheeler and drives somewhere to peppy flute music.
Ali is played, like I said, by Müjdat Gezen, a fairly well-known actor in Turkiye. How well-known? At the age of 80 he made the news by announcing he and his wife were adopting a child. He retired in 2015 after writing/acting/directing his last film, translated as Mysterious Aspects of Dictator Adolf Hitler's Life, which is one hell of a comedy to go out on.
Ali gets to the office and bickers with his boss, the editor-in-chief of a newspaper, while a decrepit old man serves them coffee. It seems that this coffee is not appreciated, as both Ali and his boss yell at him. No words, just straight up start shouting, with no accompanying subtitles, and he skulks out, leaving the coffee. They laugh about this. It's a fun workplace, unless you're a 95-year-old man left in charge of refreshments. We will never see this man again. I hope he got home okay.
It seems like Ali is a travel writer but he hasn't turned in a story for two months. But he has pitches! He's done things that should get his name back on the front page. First off, he and his friends fake a whale sighting in the Bosporus. The film quality here is different and might be from a different movie.
Ali's pitch for "flying journalist" is also rejected, because it's just him flying around in a helicopter for two days taking photos, which is neither current news or interesting at all, but maybe Turkiye just got a helicopter or something and it was new.
The subtitles are endlessly wacky, but I did my best to keep up.
The editor spends the whole scene drawing a kangaroo on top of a house with a highlighter, the only true art in this entire film. All Ali's pitches are rejected because, well, they should be in a just world. The editor points out that these terrible ideas are being pitched like Ali had just seen a flying saucer. This gives Ali the idea to throw a couple pot lids into the air, take photos of them, and maybe fake a UFO sighting. Ali is a shit journalist and his paper should seek the death penalty.
Without any transition, Ali walks off camera and discovers Homoti and his smoky spaceship, a prop that looks like it was cobbled together from sheet metal and the legs of camping chairs. It still looks better put together than most of the locations we are shown in Homoti.
Homoti! He's just like E.T. except his torso and legs are two separate pieces of foam, he has a visible zipper, and he keeps trying to put his fingers in people's mouths! He does this too many times for it to be a quirk of the puppeteer, and has to be something Müjdat Gezen really felt needed to be in his film, a lot. Like, a weird amount of this happens. Homoti also sounds like he's crying all the time, which, hey, I would be too if I read this script.
Homoti explains he is from "outer space" and Ali gets excited that his newspaper will take him back if he gets an interview with an alien. Ali takes Homoti by the hand back to his house, but trips over a rock. Homoti crushes the foam rock with his foot. This scene lasts about 15 seconds, they don't speak about it ever again, and nowhere else is it implied that Homoti is strong or anything that would explain this other than maybe, "Hey, we bought a foam rock."
At the apartment, Homoti's actor can't bend his knees enough to get on the couch, so Ali picks him up like a baby and places him there. Homoti will stay on the couch for most of the film, a bold directing choice from Gezen probably necessitated by the fact that Homoti looks like absolute dogshit when he walks around. Probably three quarters of all Homoti's screen time is shot from the shoulders up, giving the puppeteer the ability to snake their arms through the neck and operate the mouth and eyelids. They're operated poorly, but the effort counts for something.
So why won't Homoti do the interview? It's kind of unclear. He says he lives in a dictatorship and if he speaks to the press he will be punished by being kept under house arrest for an entire day. Ali agrees with him that this is a punishment to be feared and promises to do no interview. But then we cut to what looks like a Monty Python sketch of a loudmouth woman buying fruit, mutton, olives, and cheese from people who will give it to her for free if she leaves. Her name is Hatce. Everyone hates Hatce and after watching Homoti, I do too.
Ah. It's his maid. The nearly unemployed travel writer has a maid.
Homoti doesn't want to give the interview and offers something else for an article instead. His face gets some 1980s computer effects that have nothing to do with anything. Maybe Gezen was given a demo for a computer graphics company and figured, "Aha, this is $7 of CGI I don't have to pay for" and spliced the footage into his film. There are several rotating playing cards floating in black space. Clearly, this would replace an interview with a real alien.
Back at the office, Ali meets Aysegul, a college intern who brushes him off. "Tsundere," for those in the know. They will be "working together" on a project the editor hasn't mentioned yet, and never does. Aysegul says she doesn't want to work with Ali, he says OK, she leaves, but in the next scene they're at a cafe together.
Ali says he's sorry and he'd like to work with her, but she says she hasn't decided if she wants to work with him. Then they laugh and the scene ends. Unbeknownst to the viewer, Gezen has decided these characters are dating now and will treat all future scenes with them as if he had told us this. He has not. It is sad. I am sad for watching Homoti.
Then…a trans friend of Ali's enters the room. Haydar. She's wearing a ton of makeup and is frightened of Homoti. Haydar blends multiple gay stereotypes together in a fascinating package, compounded further by giving Haydar nothing to really do in this film except enter scenes dramatically and be snide with everyone. She flaps her arms around a lot and complains about boyfriends coming and going.
Homoti comes on to Haydar by saying she is cute, and Haydar blows up Homoti's spot.
LGBTQIA+ rights in Turkiye are kinda-sorta-not-quite progressive, but only when compared to other majority Muslim countries in Europe and Asia. Equalidex ranks it 96th out of 196 nations on their global equality list, a ranking that has dropped in recent years with the latest regime. Trans rights seem to have greater support than the rights of homosexuals to be out and proud. Homosexuality is still legal, but so is a lot of discrimination. Gay marriage is not recognized, but gender-affirming care has been legal since 1988, a year after Homoti was made. So maybe Gezen was ahead of his time and dealing with a serious issue, or maybe he just wanted a mincing character to be comic relief.
Ali takes Aysegul home and she meets Homoti, who appears from behind the couch with a little light.
Homoti asks if she is his girlfriend and he says no, but she says yes. I mean, it's confusing to me too, since they only met this morning and he's already taking her home to meet his alien and his maid. Up until now I thought that maybe Ali was gay, since this is supposed to be a progressive film as far as LQBTQIA+ rights in Turkiye, and having a gay protagonist would have solidified that idea. He even says to her at one point, "I have a secret," but that secret is the alien he has sitting perpetually on his living room couch and not anything to do with his sexuality.
Homoti doesn't approve of the relationship and has to leave, so he packs a little suitcase covered in party DJ booth lights that he didn't have before. They convince him to stay.
Ali promises his editor an interview on a flying carpet for some reason, and he expects Homoti to provide. Things move fast. Now Ali and Aysegul are at an airfield. They get a free ride in a plane because they're journalists (does that happen in real life?) and Ali assigns Aysegul to take photos from the plane, even though she's afraid of airplanes. Homoti is in the back of the car and conjures an "Arabian" and a flying carpet.
The boss comes over to see the blue-screened footage of this dumbass flying carpet and Ali trots out Homoti like it ain't no thing. Despite meeting a real life alien, the boss doesn't give a shit and they all begin drinking.
One sip in and they're all deliriously drunk, Homoti and the boss included. Seriously, there is one bottle of champagne for four people. You get more alcohol from a bananas foster. Maybe Turkish champagne is stronger than the rest of the world because it's made of rocks and onions or whatever. While they drink, Hatce seasons food in the kitchen, drinks from several glasses (including a milk, a coffee, and either water or clear booze), and smokes a cigarette. Neither scene is interesting. After 2 sips of her drinks, Hatce is sufficiently drunk enough to sing a slow, sad song, which is thankfully not translated by whoever did the subtitles. Homoti is really drunk. So is Hatce.
Hatce complains about being single. Homoti complains about it too. She says she's never been married, and despite having a superb grasp of the language, Homoti doesn't know what marriage is. She explains that there are men and there are women, but doesn't go into details, and Homoti starts crying. He says he's crying because he's happy, but he wishes Ali loved him.
Hatce makes a complicated drunk analogy that because she loves Homoti, then Ali loves him as well. Then Hatce starts singing a song that ruins any momentum or purpose the scene had. I think emotional scenes like this one make Homoti work better as an inept rip-off movie than it would have as an inept rip-off TV show. Real depth to all the characters here. F'reals, you guys.
There's a scene inserted at the newspaper office where a skinny man witha big mustache named Kadir tells the boss that he doesn't trust Ali, no reason given, and that he will "investigate him." Editor tells him not to, he says he will anyway. Then at the 47-minute mark, the movie is interrupted by a test pattern.
Hatce leaves and tells Homoti not to ever answer the door. Homoti promises, then immediately answers the door when Kadir, the skinny villain guy with the big mustache, rings the bell. Kadir is not surprised by Homoti (frankly, no one ever is), and thinks the best course of action is to steal Homoti by throwing his jacket over Homoti's face, picking him up by the waist, and hailing a cab.
Ali comes home, finds no Homoti (or Hatce), then starts taking off his clothes while talking to Aysegul on the largest phone in Turkiye. His big plan ends up being sitting on the couch next to Aysegul with his head in his hands. He does not look for Homoti. Ali is a shitty, shitty host.
Interior: Kadir's tiny apartment in a bad section of town. Or a good section of town. It's impossible to tell because every building we are shown other than the newspaper office and Ali's apartment is falling apart and rusted. Kadir is surprisingly to the point when he describes the plot that he thinks is going to net him millions: he's going to give photos of Homoti and "an interview" to the same paper that Ali works for, and where the editor already said he wouldn't publish an interview. Kadir is a simple man, living in a simple bedroom. If he had the rest of the house to himself, there is zero wholesome reason why this scene should be shot with Kadir's single bed in the background, other than they ran out of location budget after filming Ali and Aysegul at that cafe.
Using Atari sounds, Homoti glues Kadir's camera to his face, then suspends him from the ceiling. I fucking hate Kadir because he has zero character building. He loudly explains what he is going to do in every scene, does it, and that's that. He's like a video game NPC with limited dialogue.
Homoti leaves the house and becomes invisible.
Editor ex machina, as the boss calls Ali to tell him to go to Kadir's house, because he suspects that Kadir stole Homoti. Pretty open and shut case. All three of them arrive at Kadir's house in their drab, brown cars at the same time, because it's easier to film them all getting there at once than actually editing two cars arriving separately. It is impossible to express how incredibly dull this all is, especially without any background music.
Homoti got himself back to Ali's house, where he's sitting on the couch like he has for 80% of this movie. He takes a video call from his brother, astonishing everyone. Hatce gets up from the couch, everyone laughs for no reason, and Aysegul and Ali kind of rub Homoti a whole bunch.
While Ali and Aysegul chat it up in a completely empty restaurant (film students take note: It's cheaper to film on location before the location opens!), Haydar, to the sound of sad piano music, removes an unframed photo of a soccer player from the wall and tears it into pieces. But all is not lost! The music changes to peppy trombone and tuba music as she places two more photos of either a soccer team and a soccer player or a soccer team and a tennis player on her mirror, highlights one with lipstick, and kisses it. Then, fully clothed in a bulky 1980's sweater and jeans, puts on a kimono. She makes her way over to Ali's apartment where Hatce and Homoti are doing nothing, and Homoti breaks out an unexpected slur.
Suddenly they ask if Homoti knows E.T. and he says he does. They are friends. Homoti makes them talk to E.T., and the movie just shows a video of an E.T. toy with glowing red eyes.
Haydar asks Homoti to make a talisman for the boyfriends to be faithful, but Hatce just wants to talk to E.T., who has a surprisingly deep, sexy voice. E.T. says he also knows Hatce, because in space everyone already knows everything. In fact, E.T. tells them that Ali is in trouble, and Homoti just vanishes. Hatce looks several times under the couch for Homoti. She shortens his name to just "Homo" in the ADR and the subtitle, then grabs her breasts for no apparent reason.
Out of left field, Ali is tied to a chair in another crumbling house, held by two armed men with giant mustaches So far all the men in this film have mustaches. All of them. Ali is the only one with a beard in addition to his mustache. They say they want to take Homoti to a newspaper and somehow get 2 million lire for him. All Ali would have to say is, "Hey guys, I talked to the only newspaper that exists in this world, and they won't print an interview with an alien," but he just struggles.
Homoti appears and one of the thugs takes a shot at him. Doesn't matter — Homoti directs it back to the thugs, whose hand is now bleeding. Homoti causes the guns to disappear and then forces both mustachioed men to jump into a canal. Judging by the color of the canal, that hand is going to get hella infected, but as this might almost be a kids' movie, we can't show anyone dying. Homoti, overcome with emotion, kisses Ali, or just mashes his mask to Ali's face, before untying him. Homoti frets that Ali loves Aysegul and Ali tells him there are different kinds of love.
Here's where it gets weird — like, either a lot of stuff was edited out or the writer/actor/director just didn't know how to end the film. Now Ali and Aysegul are in bed together. Sort of dressed, sort of not. Time has passed? I don't know. While Ali and Aysegul roll around on the bed, Homoti is sitting outside, forgotten, ignored, next to a tuba (?), going through Aysegul's purse. Makeup falls out and he proceeds to smear lipstick all over his face, then goes to show Ali.
Homoti slowly pushes the door open and sees Ali and Aysegul laughing at nothing for a long time, like they do in most of the scenes they have together. Because this needs an emotional hook, Homoti cries. Despite this heartbreaking scene, we cut to comic relief Hatce as part of a Who's-On-First routine at the produce stand. Like the audience, the grocer doesn't think the ongoing wordplay bit is very funny and hits her with a wooden box, and we cut to her getting her head bandaged at a pharmacy. Hatce won't stop talking so the pharmacist bandages her mouth too. Here's where I was feeling this movie might be for kids, because this scene is fucking stupid.
Hatce returns to Ali's apartment and goes through more dumb vaudeville routines about being hit in the head. Everyone loses track of Homoti, who should have just headed home two days ago when everyone lost interest in him. They call the boss to meet at where Ali found Homoti, which as far as I can tell, Ali didn't tell anyone where that was. We get lots more shots of people getting into and driving drab, brown cars, then arriving at the same place at the same time.
Now it's night and the smoke machine (not a fog machine) is going full blast and you can't see the actors. Homoti is heading home.
They can't stop talking about Hatce's goddam bandages, so Homoti tries to help by removing her head or making it invisible. It's hard to tell. This is a last ditch effort at goofy special effects comedy, and the constant Hatce gags completely defeat any kind of poignancy Gezen was trying at with his unrequited homosexual love story. Like, Homoti could have said something, had a message, but it flat out doesn't. Virtually any other writer or director could have done a better job, although I doubt any other writer or director would have taken the job if you told them, "I'd like you to make a gay E.T. rip-off, please."
Homoti brings Hatce's head back and they all walk away from Homoti's piss-poor spaceship prop. Hatce throws some water on the ground after Homoti, which is a Turkish custom to wish luck to those who are leaving. I thought this was a neat touch, a little bit of a cultural touchpoint in the midst of a movie that has no direction and awful performances from everyone.
Everyone waves goodbye and Homoti flies off into a Colecovision night sky animation. Ali looks at the sky and maybe we feel closure? I don't know.
90% of this movie is comic relief scenes and the other 10% is people opening and closing doors. Seriously, if someone enters a building or a room, we have to be shown them unlocking the door or knocking. On one hand, there is a prominent trans character and Homoti is a male alien clearly in love with a man. That in itself should be kind of a triumph in the heavily conservative world of 1987 Turkiye. But Gezen absolutely steamrolls over all of that by forcing scenes where someone gets kidnapped, where characters talk to an E.T. toy, and where Ali and Aysegul talk about their relationship and not about the damn alien that is taking up space in the living room.
If you're interested in watching Homoti, the gay, Turkish E.T. rip-off that steals the theme from Jesus Christ Superstar and focuses way too much on a not-very-funny maid, it's available to watch on Eternal Family.
