Aprilkinder

Yuksel Yavuz's "Aprilkinder" is a part of new genre of German cinema made by young Turkish filmmakers based in Germany.He has been successful in depicting a conventional Turkish society yearning for freedom.He shows a society completely dominated by orthodox family customs where the eldest boy is supposed to marry a girl whom he has not at all seen.The family exercises tough control over children.Cem's sister Dilan represents a new breed of Turkish girls who crave for a life devoid of restrictions.Yavuz's film portrays how Turks remain in their own society.They prefer listening to their own music in Dance Halls.The older generation does not even converse in German. Aprilkinder satisfactorily illustrates rampant discrimination in German society which does not allow Turkish nationals to get decent jobs.They are forced to do menial jobs.

Sensitive but not very excitingly directed (how do directors these days deserve their prizes?) drama based on a script that starts to concentrate on the life of three Turkish youths: 2 brothers and their sister. But in the progress of the film focus shifts to the brother Cem while the two other characters, who are both very cliché (another Turkish youth that goes criminal), become of no importance, but maybe the director soon realized that with these 2 characters he could not do very much. Thus a balanced film it is not.

During watching it occurred to me that it would have been a much better idea only to tell the story of Cem from the start, as he turns out to be the only interesting character: the story of a man who deep down knows that he wants to break with his old life, but does not know how to cope. This is nicely symbolized in a stormy love-scene in the staircase after which Cem can either go down for a new life or up for his old life. Concentrating on him would have given the film a wider meaning. Not by coincidence Erdal Yildiz (Cem) and Inga Busch (the prostitute) are the best actors, although Taylan Sayilir as the camp Schlager-singer has some wonderful and funny moments.