North Sea Is Dead Sea (Nordsee ist Mordsee)

 

Writer/director Hark Bohm

Bohm and Fassbinder (far left) in 1971

NORTH SEA IS DEAD SEA (Nordsee ist Mordsee)                       B+                          Germany  (87 mi)  1976  d: Hark Bohm

I often dream of stealing a sailboat
And simply taking off
I don't know where to yet
The main thing is that I am no longer at home
It just doesn't work with the old folks anymore.

Now let’s see
How far the journey takes us
And where the wind blows me
There must be a place somewhere
For a really wild life
And that's where I want to be now.

—Udo Lindenberg, 1976, Udo Lindenberg - Ich träume oft davon, ein Segelboot zu klau'n ... YouTube (3:17)

A coming-of-age movie from the 70’s when the Federal Republic of Germany was still a divided country, but this child-forward film is considered a classic of German youth cinema, made during a time when hardly anyone was making films for children or young people, yet this film is notable for offering unique insight into teen malaise, realistically capturing social hardships and a yearning for freedom, portraying events realistically, without sensationalizing or embellishment, where the documentary style realism is what gives the film its power, creating a genuine emotional impact, leaving a mark for being authentic, immediate, and uncommonly intimate.  Made by German filmmaker Hark Bohm, one of the early collaborators of New German Cinema who is still better known as one of the staple actors for Rainer Werner Fassbinder, where he maintained a lifelong creative partnership, appearing in a dozen of his films in the 70’s and 80’s, including THE AMERICAN SOLDIER (1970), ALI:  FEAR EATS THE SOUL (1974), FEAR OF FEAR (1975), THE MARRIAGE OF MARIA BRAUN (1979), THE THIRD GENERATION (1979), BERLIN ALEXANDERPLATZ (1980), LILI MARLEEN (1981), and LOLA (1981), playing memorable supporting characters, often bringing a stark, realist gravity to Fassbinder’s intense psychological and social dramas.  Yet he was also a widely experienced and altogether unusual filmmaker in his own right, though his largely independent films were rarely screened abroad, many of them featuring his numerous adopted and foster children in starring roles.  Cofounding the Filmmakers’ Film Festival (Filmfest der Filmemacher) in 1979 with Werner Herzog, Volker Schlöndorff, and Wim Wenders, which gave rise to modern independent film funding in Germany, Bohm studied law and was also a university professor at the University of Hamburg, where he inaugurated the school’s film studies program, promoting film literacy, while acting as a vital bridge between the radical postwar generation of German auteurs and modern filmmakers, mentoring talent like German-Turkish filmmaker Fatih Akin.  Written and directed by Bohm, this film focuses on young people’s everyday lives, starring his own adopted son Uwe Bohm as 14-year old Uwe, a freckle-faced kid living at home in a dysfunctional family with his working mother (Herma Koehn) and abusive, alcoholic father (Marquard Bohm, the director’s younger brother) in a dreary Hamburg high-rise housing project.  His deadbeat dad drowns his sorrows in alcohol, regularly beating both Uwe and his mother, creating plenty of unreleased, inner rage in Uwe, venting his frustrations in a series of petty crimes and bullying that he commits with a small gang he leads, starting in the schoolyard, where together they terrorize fellow misfits with derogatory racist taunts, particularly an Asian student with no friends and no father, Dschingis (Dschingis Bowakow, biological son of the director’s wife, raised as their foster son), cruelly described as a “wog,” a “foreigner,” and a “slit-eyed outsider.”  Among the many charms of the film is that it is largely spoken in Hamburg slang, which differs significantly from standard German, making it difficult to comprehend even for native Germans, much like Andrea Arnold, Mike Leigh, Ken Loach, and Lynne Ramsay in British cinema.

While a beloved film in Germany, it is practically unknown in North America, so this is a film that deserves rescue from oblivion.  Bohm lived in the region for three months prior to filming to research the subject and develop the screenplay with his actors, creating something original and critical, yet what’s unique about the film is the prominent casting of family members, where the two starring roles are arch enemies played by the director’s own foster children, creating an unusual sense of intimacy that carries throughout the entire picture, reflecting a time when children had to cope with being alone on the street, where the brash attitude of punk rebellion from a child’s vantage point recalls Linda Manz in Dennis Hopper’s Out of the Blue (1980).  When we witness the xenophobic, bullying behavior of the gang, it recalls those self-absorbed kids from Fassbinder’s KATZELMACHER (1969), which was notable for the way he arranges a group of disaffected and bored young people a little differently each time in a line facing the camera, returning to this same image frequently, a highly stylized way to project venomous racist hatred, like a Greek chorus, evolving out of his own play, which transfigures a cinema of poverty into bleakly triumphant rites of despair.  Set in Wilhelmsburg, Hamburg, the second largest city after Berlin, known as a multicultural, vibrant neighborhood with a mix of industrial history, creative art scenes, and green spaces, crossed by hundreds of canals connecting the Elbe River to the North Sea.  Much of this film is spent on the waterways, which is a distinctly different approach, creating a completely different visual landscape, beautifully shot by Wolfgang Treu, capturing several sunsets over the sea.  Evolving out of the harsh, unforgiving environment, Uwe and his gang break into a slot machine, but Uwe keeps the money for himself, which leads to disgruntled friends, who wait in vain for their cut.  Instead, he buys a switchblade, but on the way back from the store, he notices Dschingis building a raft out of scrap wood.  The next day Dschingis finds his raft destroyed, with the gang looking on, again taunting him with vile racist disdain, prompting an angry attack, with Dschingis thoroughly outnumbered, but he fights them off, and a dual ensues between Uwe and Dschingis, who ultimately prevails, causing the others to flee.  Dschingis forces Uwe to help him repair his raft.  In an attempt to repair the damage with his gang, still waiting for their cut from the robbery, and in an attempt to save face after losing the fight, finding his leadership in question, Uwe steals a car, but his joyride is cut short before the police catch him, returning him home to his father, who brutally beats him afterwards, nearly killing him, leaving him scarred and bandaged.  A raw and skillfully written social study of growing up in an impoverished working-class neighborhood of troubled youth and generational conflict, the two boys eventually overcome their animosity and bond over shared feelings of alienation, realizing that they have the same dysfunctional family problems and social burdens, with Dschingis eventually standing up for him. 

With visible signs of abuse on his battered face, Uwe decides to skip school, asking Dschingis, of all people, to notify the school for him, meeting up afterwards, refusing to go back home, wondering if he can stay with Dschingis, but his mother (Natalia Bowakow, the director’s wife) refuses, claiming it’s against the law to illegally hide a child, which only infuriates Dschingis, both of them commiserating on what to do, where they decide to run away together.  In short order this becomes a buddy hangout movie, as the second half shifts into a compelling, heartfelt adventure as the two abused and bullied boys form an unlikely alliance.  Using the repaired raft, they set out from the Port of Hamburg, but the homemade contraption proves too slow and cumbersome, finding themselves precariously positioned between tugboats, freighters, and much bigger ships that nearly run them over or capsize them, where they stand out like sitting ducks, so Uwe decides to steal a much faster dingy, which allows them swifter movement from the wind in the sails as they continue heading down the Lower Elbe, spending the night along the banks of the river, where in the morning light they find themselves near the Hahnöfersand Correctional Facility, a juvenile detention center, realizing those prisoners are hardly older than they are, suddenly imagining seeing themselves there.  Part of the controversy at the time was the film was rated unacceptable for viewers under age 16, due to the harsh depiction of reality, yet those same viewers could watch extremely violent action thrillers.  What this amounted to was political censorship based on outdated ideals about protecting children.  From stealing boats to knife-wielding stick-ups and kung-fu fights (both have Bruce Lee posters in their rooms), it’s difficult to watch the casual schoolyard racism and brutal honesty about 1970’s social environments, yet Bohm sustains a compelling theme of alienation.  As the two boys continue downstream, approaching where the mouth of the Elbe meets the North Sea, they are approached by a police boat, but manage to escape through the shallow reeds in a side channel, quickly abandoning their boat to hide onshore, breaking into a kiosk at night as they were desperately hungry, where the two of them resemble a modern day version of Mark Twain’s Huckleberry Finn, where life along the river presents everpresent dangers.  Forced to continually evade police with narrow escapes, the final shot is an image of their boat sailing down the river, seen against the setting sun, away from the hopelessness of everyday life, while a poetic refrain from Udo Lindenberg’s song leads from a blue sea to a black screen with no end credits, Ich träume oft davon, ein Segelboot zu klau'n // Udo Lindenberg YouTube (2:26).  Engaging and suspenseful, never resorting to a moralizing, yet artistically impactful, the film deals with the miserable living conditions suffered by many young people from the postwar working-class generation, becoming a believable adventure film that addresses the feelings of disaffected youth growing up without love.    

Note

Hark Bohm died of natural causes surrounded by his family at the age of 86 in November 2025.  

The Edge of Heaven (Auf Der Anderen Seite)

 

Director Fatih Akin

Akin with Hanna Schygulla at Cannes

winner of Best Screenplay at Cannes

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  

 

 

THE EDGE OF HEAVEN (Auf Der Anderen Seite)                       A                                      aka:  On the Other Side                                                                                                    Germany  Turkey  (122 mi)  2007  d: Fatih Akin

This film opens and closes on a brilliant shot, each offering its own thematic observation, beginning with a car arriving at a desolate, run down gas station, where the traveler is called by the name of “brother” several times, a sign of cultural respect, but one that is multi-sided, as the film soon reveals.  The film’s literal title is On the Other Side, which better reflects the border between life and death as well as the geographical one between countries and the different ways of life.  Fatih Akin has written another one of those Kieslowski-like Three Colors Trilogy intersecting plot scenarios told in three chapter headings involving three families with mixed German-Turkish heritage, a Turkish father and son living in Germany, a Turkish mother living in Germany but separated from her long lost daughter, and a German mother and daughter, not necessarily seen in any correct order.  At some point in the film, all are connected, but what matters most is not the interweaving mathematical construction, which is interesting enough, but the deep-seeded connections that are established, some of which are profoundly moving, becoming a story of sacrifice and forgiveness, and the possibility of reconciliation.  The film highlights the differences between the two cultures in the first two shots, which couldn’t be more opposite, providing the viewer some idea as to the vast divide that exists between characters.   Historically, as the postwar French invited the Algerians, more than two million Turks were invited into Germany to work as “guest workers,” the exact same term President Bush has used for his proposed temporary resident immigration program with Mexicans, a proposal that went nowhere except to fan the flames of racist intolerance along the border states where they are building giant iron fences to keep the immigrants out.  While these host nations offer unskilled, low wage labor, it has been accompanied by deep seeded resentment in the mother country against the “foreigners” as well as complications arising when first generation offspring are actually born citizens, yet treated with racist scorn and disregard, where the harsh reality is that it’s easier to hate someone than to love them.  Evidence Fassbinder’s earlier German classic ALI:  FEAR EATS THE SOUL (1974) and the recent riots outside Paris that lasted for weeks.  Angry demonstrations by what are seen as radical fringe groups in both France and Germany (and now Turkey) are the norm and cast an altogether different face than the advertised brotherly unity of the European Union.  

Winner of Best Screenplay at the Cannes Film Festival of 2007, though the choice is not without controversy, as many have tired of an over-reliance on this revolving door style of storytelling these days, though few are as deeply compassionate as displayed here.  Tuncel Kurtiz, a prominent Turkish actor who worked with renowned Turkish director Yilmaz Güney (an unmistakable influence on Akin), is Ali Aksu, an Anthony Quinn, Zorba the Greek type character, an old Turkish man who retains his vigorous energy and charm, and his delight with the pleasures of women and drink.  When he finds a Fassbinderesque Turkish hooker in Bremen, Germany, Nursel Köse as Yeter, who may as well be the voluptuous Barbara Valentin in ALI:  FEAR EATS THE SOUL, he is so taken by her that he makes her an offer to come live with him.  After she is visited by some glum looking Islamic radicals who could make her life miserable, she thinks the old man’s offer is a safe choice, but it has tragic consequences for both.  Ali’s son is Nejat (Baki Davrak), somewhat reminiscent of French actor Romain Duris, an introverted college German professor who lectures on Goethe and becomes the closest thing to a lead character in this film, who is initially skeptical of his father’s relationship, but he grows fond of Yeter once he discovers the sacrifice she makes sending most of her hard-earned money home to Turkey for her estranged daughter's university studies, and eventually goes searching for her missing daughter in Istanbul, realizing the importance of the connection they never had.   Nurgül Yesilçay plays the daughter Ayten, a fiercely independent radical in Turkey who has revolutionary ambitions with militant connections, which after an unfortunate incident leads to a quick escape to Hamburg, Germany, finding herself alone and penniless, where she meets a young student Lotte (Patrycia Ziolkowska) completely at random, soon becoming love interests, despite the disapproving eye of her more conservative mother Susanne, Fassbinder icon Hanna Schygulla returning to the screen after a long absence, who truly rekindles her acting credibility here.  Ayten is arrested and confined for months before her asylum plea is denied, leading to her deportation and imprisonment in Turkey.  Lotte travels to Turkey, where she doesn’t speak the language, yet a chance encounter brings her together with Nejat, where the city of Istanbul actually becomes a prominent character, where it’s easy to get lost, as she gets caught up in the seemingly hopeless situation of freeing Ayten.  Once the principals are introduced, tragedy befalls each and every one, though in differing ways, but each loses something that may as well be the most important thing in their life. 

Influenced by Erich Fromm’s The Art of Loving, which was enormously popular on college campuses in the 60’s, this film is multi-layered and poignant, the second entry in an intended trilogy Liebe, Tod und Teufel (Love, Death and the Devil), with Akin's acclaimed HEAD-ON (2004) as the first installment, culminating in THE CUT (2014).  While not as explosive as HEAD ON, a radically offbeat punk love story, this quieter effort is still a daring work of probing intelligence on death and the power of redemption, where the extraordinary editing interweaves several stories together in a nonlinear narrative, using a revolving cast in a series of near-miss connections, becoming an exploration of transnational identity, which includes the difficulty of identity within exile, where the cruelty of the modern world, with its Kafkaesque absurdities, is simultaneously tearing us apart while also bringing us closer together.  Set in an expanding internationalized stage with a constantly-on-the-move camera style by Rainer Klausmann that beautifully captures with precision the finer details in each culture, which is an extraordinary expression simply by composition alone, adding authentic locations and music to a superb ensemble of actors, led by Schygulla who may surprise many with the depth of her performance, but she is given some of the best scenes in the film which occur near the end.  Her character beautifully transcends the cultural divide with her effortless style of understatement and also offers a refreshing look at what those self-absorbed kids from Fassbinder’s KATZELMACHER (1969) might have turned into forty years later, where she literally becomes the consciousness of the film.  The final shot has its own transcendent quality, which could easily be a shot from similar films such as Ozon’s TIME TO LEAVE (2005) or Nuri Bilge Ceylan’s CLIMATES (2006), yet shown here, coming on the heels of Schygulla’s personal transformation, offers profound insight, and an open-ended ambiguity.  It’s so easy to get caught up in our differences, which is at the root of KATZELMACHER, shown through simple, ordinary acts of societal prejudice and xenophobia, but what we have in common is all too often overlooked and forgotten, but not by Akin, called Fatih Fassbinder in some reviews, who skillfully navigates outside the jurisdiction of national boundaries and identities by knowing each so well and instead, despite the meandering journey, cuts a path straight to the heart of the matter, creating believable people who suffer unfathomable losses yet retain a surprising emotional resilience.