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Gegen die Wand
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At every film festival there's always one film that's light years ahead of the competition. A true gem that in shocks you, makes you laugh and moves you. A few days later the pictures and words keep reappearing in your mind - a sign that what you have seen has really and truly affected you. It is heartening when these films then get the recognition they deserve, and at this year's Berlinale it was Gegen Die Wand (Head On) that justly won the Golden Bear, the first time in 18 years that a German film has done so. The film centres on second generation German Turks, a subject that Fatih Akin is familiar with (his last film Solino was about second generation German Italians). Each 'chapter' of the story is rounded off with a Turkish band, whose female singer sings a song which outlines the pictures that have just been witnessed, much like the chorus in a Greek tragedy. It's also a style of narrative that veers sharply away from the documentary-like realism that is predominant in so many films at the moment. The plot revolves around two Turkish Germans who form an uneasy alliance. They meet in a sanatorium that specialises in attempted suicide cases. Cahit (Birol Unel) has had a car 'accident' and Sibel (Sibel Kekilli) has tried to slit her wrists. Sibel's family (father, mother and brother) meets her in the sanatorium and takes her to the cafÈ. She looks prim and remains silent. Your first impression is that she's demure and helpless, perhaps oppressed by an overly strict father, but as soon as the men leave the table, she lets her hair down, crosses her legs and lights up a cigarette. Cahit on the other hand, with his greasy hair and scarred-up face, looks like a heavy drinking down-and-out. An unlikely match? Well you'd think so, but Sibel makes a beeline for Cahit and immediately asks him to marry her. He is her perfect decoy - too messed up to actually want her, but of Turkish extraction so her parents will accept him as a son-in-law. Once married she can go off clubbing and bedding other men because Cahit won't care what she does anyway. In return she promises to cook and be his housekeeper. Grudgingly Cahit agrees. The scene in which Cahit and Sibel's parents is extremely funny: Sibel's brother makes it blatantly obvious that he thinks there's something fishy going on. Nevertheless they do manage to fool the parents and get married. This preamble looks like the premise for a predictable, slow-burning love story, but Head On is full of twists and turns. The witty script propels the action forward: Cahit realises that he is in love with Sibel when she goes out late one night. Instead of going out too and meeting up with his sometime lover Maren (Catrin Striebek), he first of all messes up the flat for revenge, and then promptly tidies it up again. This action is particularly striking as Cahit literally slept among beer cans and never washed anything up before Sibel moved in. He mopes around the flat like a lost puppy, picking up Sibel's shoes and touching them. This is such a contrast from his previous hard-nosed character that Cahit becomes both pathetic and funny. As the story progresses, Sibel starts to return Cahit's affection, but just as it seems there's going to be a happy end, Cahit kills one of Sibel's lovers by accident and is incarcerated for doing so. Ousted by her family, Sibel flees to a relative in Istanbul where she spirals down into a depressing drug and sex-filled demise. The scenes that depict the extent of Cahit and Sibel's problems seem gratuitous at times. In one sequence, Cahit smashes a glass with his hand, grinds both palms into the broken remnants, and dances around a club dripping blood. Likewise, the scene in which Sibel is beaten into an absolute pulp by three men was unnecessarily violent, but these incidents emphasise how mutually and individually destructive these two personalities are. Their meeting merely helps each of them on the way to a better life with someone else. In this context, the 'Turkish' element of the story seems unimportant. Head On is a violent love story fuelled by cultural restrictions, self-hatred, anger, drugs and sex. It makes you realise that no matter how much you may love someone, it doesn't mean that they are actually 'good' for you. Birol Unel and Sibel Kekilli play these two desperate characters with such conviction, that even if you want to look away when the violence is too much, you won't be able to. The unpredictability of the characters they play also means that you have no idea how it will end - the mark of a truly compelling story.
Reviewed by Elke de Wit
Reader comments about Gegen die Wand
Phil (Email address withheld) writes:
The Germans look down on Turkish
immigrants. This is a fine picture,
certainly worth seeing, but the
main message is that the Turks are
mercurial people who like to live
in squalor and who are likely to
attempt suicide (i.e., nothing like
Germans). It reminds one of other
films in which whites look down on
Blacks.
tony o'brien (joanandtony@xytra.co.nz) writes:
A good film, but flawed. Cahit is rather one dimensional, perhaps two, but his rockstar persona changes little during the film. Sibel has a greater emotional range, but the ease with which she overcomes her considerable problems is hard to credit. She is alternately self destructive and resourceful, but how does she survive that terrible beating unscarred, emotionally and physically? Cahit killed a man, spent a few years in a German prison, surely a traumatic experience for a Turk, and came out clean living and sober. The Turkish family scenes had some real humour. And there was a lovely poignancy to the developing love between the two characters. But a little bit overplayed, I thought.
J.P (Email address withheld) writes:
ok, let's just get this straight:
Cahit is not real enough but redeemable because you get to see him suffer.
Sibel manages to cope with horrific trauma without being institutionalised and because of that she is not worth employing.
Love and talent are over rated.
Really have to see this film, I am amazed!
Larry Alexander (Email address withheld) writes:
Although I find Elke de Wit's review above very insightful, I can't say I enjoyed this film. It is certainly raw, powerful and expressive, but just too much so: the relentless scenes of violence, sex and drunkenness distract from the underlying love story, and the way Sibel and Cahit's relationship evolves from a marriage of convenience into love is poorly crafted and unconvincing (although I agree with the reviewer that the scene of Cahit alone in his flat waiting for Sibel was excellent). I felt the movie went downhill when the action moved to Istanbul - it seemed to lose the plot amid pointless, facile scenes of Sibel wandering about looking for trouble (another reviewer said this mirrored Cahit's life before he met Sibel - OK, but so what?), followed by Cahit's release from jail, miraculously rehabilitated (as symbolised by his chugging bottles of mineral water instead of beer cans!). I also agree with Phil that the way the film portrays Turks in Germany is quite negative - self-destructive, antisocial misfits like Cahit and Sibel, bigoted and dogmatic like Sibel's father, abusive toward women like her brother. Perhaps the director did not intend for his characters to represent stereotypes, but the danger is that his film will comfort the prejudices of Germans toward the Turkish immigrant population.
Jimmy Nutmeg (Email address withheld) writes:
i don't see why the film has to be seen to be "portraying turks in germany", why can't it be the story of some people who happen to be turkish germans? their "turkishness" is mainly relevent as a plot device to put the two leads together (ie, to make their marriage to some extent credible).
clas (clasw@web.de) writes:
this is certainly not a film, which looks down on Turks (as Phil misinterprets). The Turkish German film-maker gives us a strong sense of what it means to be caught between archaic Easternn traditions and a libertine, somewhat directionless Western lifestyle. The character development may be scant, but the issue raised here is addressed with much authenticity and insight. The film tells a story one will not easily forget.
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