The last weekend in June brought Turkish Rambo back to the big screen at the Hollywood Theater. The three packed showings presented Justin Ralls’ score to the Turksploitation film Vahsi Kan (a low-budget re-creation of First Blood, the first film of the Rambo franchise) along with live dialogue readings and foley art. The Turkish Rambo project by House of Scordatura takes on a life of its own beyond the film Vahsi Kan (not to be confused with the other “Turkish Rambo,” Korkusuz.) 

Before the show Anatolian rock music poured out of the PA, adding more noise to the already lively chatter of the sold-out house. Ann Medellin, House of Scordatura education director, gave out headbands as patrons entered the theater. HoS director Ron Blessinger was right up front, chunking away on his violin with delight. Justin Ralls, composer and conductor, wore a tuxedo behind the podium, adorned with the requisite red headband.

The zany – dare I say rambunctious? – score plays with the tropes of ‘80s action movie scores: 16th-note hi-hats, trumpet rips, syncopated bass lines, dissonant stab chords, guitar lines with plenty of spring reverb, and soaring string leads abound. These were the tropes of the orchestral scores to TV action series like The A-Team before the blaring synths and programmed drums of the Miami Vice theme would take over the back half of the ‘80s. It also had some similarities to JG Thirlwell’s score for the animated pastiche of action cartoons, The Venture Bros. The epic main theme of Turkish Rambo featured vocal ahs and marching trumpet rhythms reminiscent of Morricone’s score to the Dollars trilogy, or John Williams’ themes to the Indiana Jones trilogy.

These are apt comparisons, as expressed by Ralls himself in his interview with Matthew Andrews. Some more points of comparison he mentioned: Quincy Jones, Jerry Goldsmith, and Lalo Schifrin. He mentioned the possibility of recording the soundtrack, which would be great fun. Curtis Mayfield’s Super Fly score and Isaac Hayes’s Shaft score both have extensive lives beyond their respective films. 

The dialogue was, as expected, goofy, like a badly done dub. The jeans-wearing gang leader had a sniveling voice like a punk teenager trying too hard to act tough. Our Rambo had a voice somewhere between a young Stallone and David Hayter’s gruff performance of Snake in the Metal Gear Solid series. The live dialogue clearly took some liberties with the original, to turn up the corniness. Some moments of the dialogue worked better than others: fourth-wall breaking and lampshade hanging only work so many times before it becomes too clever for its own good. It’s a difficult needle to thread, and for the most part the dialogue went through the eye of the comic needle.

The third sonic element of Turkish Rambo beyond the music and dialogue was the live foley art. The foley rarely drew attention to itself, but sometimes a curious audience member would peep over to see how they were making this-or-that sound. The foley artists were certainly having fun with re-creating squishing footsteps, revving engines, the swinging of knives and the punching of flesh. And there were a lot of punches to soundtrack.

Working with a limited budget, the filmmakers for Vahsi Khan did all they could to sell the seriousness of the plot, and failed hilariously. The air-punching choreography, the ketchup-red blood splatters, an obviously fake body rag-dolling off a cliff, and the nonchalant grunts during fight scenes all led to uproarious laughter. Between those moments, pockets of the audience were in a near-constant snicker at each baffling costume, line reading, or camera shot. This is part of the fun. Inexplicable Dutch angles, cameras spinning way too long to communicate disorientation, and obviously wrong filming locations and other markers of bad cinematography are all not necessarily laugh-out-loud funny but add to the campy atmosphere of the film. Our protagonist, played by noted Turkish actor Cüneyt Arkın, was motivated by pure rage, and relished every opportunity to kill bad guys in increasingly insane ways. 

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Secondary to the film’s gratuitous violence was its gratuitous sex. The only female characters in Vahsi Kan are eye candy, bitchy wives, or love interests – often more than one at the same time. The plentiful shots of women’s asses always linger a little bit too long. It tries so hard to be misogynistic that it occasionally boils over into ridiculousness. For instance, the love interest of the film is stabbed and left for dead in the forest for who knows how long. When she’s found, despite all the tatters to her clothes, her earrings remain pristine. She is immediately down bad for our protagonist who is uninterested, playing the protective father figure instead – hell, he’s old enough to be her father. For her protection he does give her some clean clothes: a skimpy, anti-camouflage red dress with tons of midriff and cleavage. 

All this makes Vahsi Kan a textbook example of camp cinema, as described by Susan Sontag’s essay “Notes on Camp.” I suspect that no one at the Turkish Rambo needed to know a thing about the original Rambo, or Vahsi Kan for that matter, nor needed to care much about the characters, plot and themes. The characters are paper thin, the plot is predictable, and the themes are non-existent. We know all this, and we don’t care. 

Turkish Rambo also reminds me of the goofiness of a midnight screening of The Rocky Horror Picture Show or The Room. The audience, rather than sitting silently in reverence, was expected to burst out in laughter and wear ridiculous costumes. Both of these are regular events in Portland: Clinton Street Theater shows The Rocky Horror Picture Show every Saturday, and Cinema 21 shows The Room all the time. It was only a matter of time before someone brought together two great traditions of cinema: the film with live orchestra score, and the late night camp classic screening. 

Does this make Turkish Rambo camp music? Maybe. The score, live dialogue and foley play up the existing campiness of Vahsi Kan. Seeing all the sounds of Turkish Rambo made live in real time shows us the artifice behind the sounds of cinema. A real punch, for instance, does not sound like an impressive smack, but rather a dull thud. The foley sounds, often made by slapping raw meat or hollow logs, seem more real to us. The dialogue didn’t come even close to matching the bouncing of the actors’ lips. 

Ralls’ score plays absolutely straight, however, which was a good creative choice. A more intentionally tongue-in-cheek score would’ve ruined it. Elmer Bernstein, who composed the score for Airplane!, said they had to play the score entirely straight, with a deadly seriousness. That’s what made Airplane! so funny: the performances, the editing, the score, all treat the absurdity as normal. Why Kareem Abdul-Jabbar is secretly moonlighting as a pilot, we will never know, but it’s funny. 

Turkish Rambo strikes a similar tone. Turkish Rambo has a gravitas that far outpaced the technical constraints of the film, and the humor lies in this dissonance. There may even be a higher-level meta-joke going on here: dozens of musicians, actors and foley artists are needed to pull this whole thing off. Seeing the whole stage at the Hollywood Theater packed so tight adds to the experience, going big rather than going home. 

After Turkish Rambo ended, there was a massive applause and standing ovations. Patrons crowded outside, lighting up cigs, chatting, and re-enacting their favorite choreography, like a child who just saw Star Wars for the first time waving his empty cup around like a lightsaber. 

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For those who missed your chance, I have heard rumors of a comeback featuring an even bigger ensemble of musicians on an even bigger stage. I dare not say more, lest I be accused of hyping the people up for something that doesn’t end up happening. Consider this instead a call-to-action for those who could make it happen.