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| Director Fatih Akin |
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| Akin with Hanna Schygulla at Cannes |
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| 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.
