Ayşecik ve Sihirli Cüceler Rüyalar Ülkesinde

Plot summary

Ayşecik and her parents live on a farm, tending chickens and harvesting crops. One day a tornado rips through, and she dashes back to the house because her dog is trapped inside. The wind lifts the cottage off its foundation and carries it into the sky. When it finally lands, Ayşecik opens the door and looks out.

The Northern Sorceress gives her a protective kiss and a pair of silver shoes, and seven munchkins promise to help her. She sets off to find the Great Wizard. Crossing grasslands and forests, she meets Korkuluk the Scarecrow, Teneke Koruadam the Tin Woodman, and Korkak Aslan the Cowardly Lion. Keşkin Zeka demands that they kill the Wicked Witch of the South, Suna Selen, to get their wishes.

After the witch’s soldiers destroy their friends, Ayşecik and Korkak Aslan are thrown into the witch’s jail-house. Ayşecik enters carrying a heavy tin bucket, but sets it down when the witch orders her to scrub the floor. She trips over a string, and her left shoe falls off. The witch picks it up and taunts her.

Ayşecik grabs the bucket and flings the water at the witch. The witch screams, trembles, and evaporates into nothing. Her former subjects willingly restore Korkuluk and Teneke Koruadam. Back in the Emerald City, Keşkin Zeka confesses he is a fraud, hands out trinkets to Ayşecik’s friends, and accidentally leaves her behind when he escapes in his balloon.

The group sets off again, meeting china dolls and hammer-wielding cavemen, then they start to dance. The Good Sorceress tells Ayşecik how to use her shoes. She says goodbye to her friends, taps her heels together, and arrives home. For the first time in any adaptation of The Wizard of Oz, the story shows how the young heroine’s friends react after she leaves.

Production

Zeynep Değirmencioğlu was seventeen when she portrayed Ayşecik, matching the age of Judy Garland as Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz (1939), the film this one adapts. In L. Frank Baum’s book, Dorothy is described as ten to twelve years old. The lead’s name was switched from Dorothy to Ayşecik to profit from Değirmencioğlu’s fame in Turkish pop culture, where she was known for playing that character in a series of films.

She was frequently cast in the same girl-next-door type. Ayşe’s dog, originally Toto, is called Boncuk, a Turkish word for “bead” and a common pet name. English-speaking viewers have sometimes mistaken it for “Banju.”