At first, Dilan Yurdakul wanted to make an ordinary, raw crime series, with a lot of action. She is showrunner and protagonist in the new Videoland series Bonnie & Clyde about the rampage of the abusive love couple Esra and Greg. But gradually she became more and more fascinated by the background of the young criminals. Yurdakul: „They are both unseen, which makes them outcasts. Esra sets out to break free from a dysfunctional family with shameful behavior. If my life had turned out differently, I could have been her. I recognize her anger.”
The thirty-year-old actress and theater maker from Amsterdam studied European Studies and German at the UvA, became known for her role as rogue detective Aysen in the RTL soap Good times Bad Times, and also makes theatrical performances herself. She is currently working on a theater solo and a novel. Yurdakul loosely bases her first series on the crime couple Marco van der P. and Merve B., who attracted attention in February 2014 with a series of striking, violent robberies. They were soon dubbed ‘Bonnie and Clyde’ in the press, after the infamous American crime couple from the 1930s, who have been sung in various films and in many pop songs.
Turkish edge
About her debut as showrunner, Yurdakul says: “I could wait to get a part, or I could come up with something myself.” Still, she had to fight to get the series the way she envisioned it: “There were times when I said, ‘If this becomes the story, I’ll pull out.'” That internal struggle was roughly about balancing the exciting action scenes and the backstory. Greg, played by Yannick Jozefzoon, now has to make do with a short but telling scene in which he briefly bumps into his adoptive father in the garage. Esra’s background is exposed in more detail, especially the difficult relationship with her domineering, hard mother (Nazmiye Oral), and the misfortune that has scarred their family.
Yurdakul: „I wanted to give it more of a Turkish edge. And I wanted something from the condition migrant about the upheaval of migrants, and how to survive as a woman in the patriarchy. Esra’s father is absent, he has already been emasculated. The mother has taken over his role – victim becomes perpetrator – she feels frustrated in her ambitions and blames the children. She gives her son omnipotence over his older sister. So you see that women often maintain the conservative structures.”
romantic mix
The romantic mix of rebellion, sex, violence and beautiful cars that clings to the original Bonnie and Clyde is controversial. The cold reality doesn’t give much cause for romance either. Nor is that of the contemporary Dutch followers. During the lawsuit in 2015, the duo said that it was all okay, and that the victims simply should have cooperated better. The man was given sixteen years, the woman twelve.
How do you make such unscrupulous robbers more or less sympathetic to the viewer? “That was always the big question, yes. This is of course not the real story, I do that by giving insight into how they came to be. They both flee in love. They didn’t do it for the money, they said, they did it for the freedom.” Yurdakul shows Esra and Greg’s love in attractive scenes involving sex, having fun, dressing up. Witty is the scene in which one of their hostage victims (Leopold Witte) gives them couples therapy from the trunk. Yurdakul: “In the trial I saw that, after all this time being separated in custody, they were still so in love. They kissed each other.”
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