Like his earlier Agit, Turkish filmmaker Yilmaz Guney's Baba (The Father) concerns a central character beaten down by life. The urban father in the film has agreed to serve a 25-year prison sentence on the proviso that his family will be cared for. Upon his release, he discovers that the State has allowed (and probably encouraged) his family to descend into the pit of degradation. The anguish of the father of the story may well have been reflecting the state of mind of Guney himself. He had just spent two years in a Turkish prison on a highly suspect charge of harboring terrorists. It was also reflective of the miserable, poverty-stricken circumstances of his childhood. There can be no argument with Baba; this is a "personal statement" film from the word go. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi