Do Outro Lado

So many films tell bland stories based on clichéd characters, whose ultimate destiny is established in the first tracking shot. But this intelligent film is based on a set of interesting individuals whose evolving personal histories quietly command attention. There's an elderly Turkish man, living in Germany, capable of both gentlemanly and violent behaviour; his son, successful but shy and unconnected to those around him; the prostitute he takes as a substitute for a wife; her politically radical daughter; the German student that the daughter falls for; and the student's mother, a conservative hausfrau with a less conservative past. Their lives intersect, but messily, not neatly, and director Faith Akin chooses to end his film before being forced to a near resolution. The film doesn't exactly make you sit on the edge of your seat; but it feels both true to life and utterly personal. It's a thoughtful movie in the best sense of that word.

This is the "Short Cut" concept once again, but in a much more clever way. It says that everybody are destined to get together. For better and for worse. We don't know it, but our movie audience understands.

This is also about the relation between Germany and Turkey and West and East at the present moment. The two are closer now than they used to be, but both parts are still hurt after each meeting. Unconditional love is hard to reach, but people try, without knowing it.

A movie about sadness but also a little about hope. Many things are too late, but some things aren't. You'll definitely sit through the final scene, for reasons which shall not be mentioned here.

A German filmmaker with Turkish extraction, Faith Akin's fifth feature, a Cannes' BEST SCREENPLAY winner, THE EDGE OF HEAVEN is a Bremen-Istanbul bilateral drama, unfolds in a triptych structure, delineates the vagaries of destiny and incidents impinged upon three parent- offspring pairs: a Turkish professor of German literature Nejat Aksu (Davrak) and his widowed pensioner father Ali (Kurtiz) living in Bremen, the latter, meets a middle-aged Turkish prostitute Yeter (Köse), and decides to pay her to live in with him as his exclusive possession, Yeter misses her daughter Ayten (Yesilçay) in Istanbul, whom she hasn't been in contact for years and later we will learn that she is now a young anti-government firebrand, the final pair is Lotte (Ziolkowska), a German college student who falls in love with Ayten and her mother Susanne (Schygulla), who doesn't quite approve of their lesbian romance and Ayten's radical political stance.

With each of the triptych respectively named as: Yeter's death, Lotte's death, and the eponymous The Edge of Heaven, Akin presages the tragedies in the first two segments like a hanging rock, leaving audience hooked by the impending demise, it is a bold move to dispel suspense and foreground the inevitability in its fair-paced narrative which evinces of Akin's more restrained sobriety over his material and the disparities underlying the two very different countries (both segments opens with protests, one in Bremen, another in Istanbul, their different after-effects tellingly betray Akin's political inclination). But, what renders wholesome of the film's slightly fortuity-heavy story is Akin's reflective and unflinchingly humane dissection of his dramatis personae, they are all the garden-variety type, each tries their best to get hold of their lives in the best possible way, and each is undermined by their foibles, but in its praise of love (Ayten and Lotte's intense love transcends their different mother tongues), family (Yeter's death separates Nejat and Ali, whereas Lotte's death unites Susanne with Ayten), understanding (Susanne's lofty gesture to the girl who obliquely causes the death of her daughter), and forgiveness (the childhood memory prompts Nejat to look for Ali in the end), that finale really vouches for the film's title, heaven is not afar in spite of there is turmoil prevalent on the surface, humanity can prevail.

Wonderful performances from the central sextet, in the (borderline) leading part, Davrak emanates an aura of soothing kindness often outdoes what he is required by the script and Turkish name-star Yesilçay mounts a great deal of rawness and bluntness in her deglamorized commitment, whereas Köse and Ziolkovska, due to their characters' preordained fate, are the ones to proffer ample sympathy. As for the two veterans, the late Turkish triple-threat Kurtiz trades on a spot-on brazenness of senescent loneliness and obstinacy, and Schygulla, staggeringly holds court as the redeeming soul who gets over from a sad bereavement and carries on with a positive vibe, which is so powerful and contagious, that fly-on-the-wall observation of her wailing in the hotel room is tremendously devastating to watch.

After his astounding one-two punch HEAD-ON (2004) and this, in retrospect, the following decade surprisingly hasn't panned out as a substantial acclivity for this wunderkind cineaste (he was only 34 at that time) as one might have postulated, his track record after THE EDGE OF HEAVEN is a lukewarm comedy SOUL KITCHEN (2009), an atrocious misfire THE CUT (2014) and his latest GOODBYE BERLIN (2016), almost gets no traction upon its release in the international front. Will Akin find his mojo back? It will be a crying shame if a filmmaker of his credentials cannot achieve something significantly great.

"The Edge of Heaven", original title "On the other side", takes up a number of ideas from Faith Akin's previous film. But it takes them also in a new unexpected direction - with a political view (on Kurdish problem, on Europeans), with additional protagonist types - now the conflicted German Turks are joined by 'naive' Germans proper and 'seen-too-much' Turkish (Kurds) proper. All of the characters were very well constructed and, as representative types of their social groups, offered much material for the audience to reflect upon.

Indeed, a knowledgeable audience would find this film to be replete with commentary on our social and political reality, the Anatolian and the European, and on the respective preconceptions and stereotypes. Some of the commentary is tragic, some is ironic. Here, in Bulgaria, the audience laughed and applauded when the German granma said with all her conviction to the Kurdish girl that everything in her country will become alright once they join the EU. On the other hand, an émigré Kurdish audience will probably applaud a very moving and full of suspense depiction of the Kurdish struggle in Turkey, which is however frank both to Kurds and to the Turkish authorities. It included small cameos from the conflict that are for the first time openly publicised: for example, the revolutionaries as they are taken out of their hideout to be arrested by the police, announce their names to the street and the world, in apprehension of being disappeared by the authorities; minutes later the crowd of passer-bys claps to the departing police vans in a popular approval of the suppression of kurdish struggle...

Still, the myriad political and social themes are only a setting to a much more personal story. The opening of one's soul, the crossing of inner walls that separate us from those who love us. This story is repeated three times, in different context, for the three characters who remain alive to cross 'to the other side': the German mother who accepts her daughter's ideals, the German-Turkish son who forgives his father, the Kurdish girl who takes the love of her friends over her revolutionary commitment. However, the director allows no one of them to consume their redemption within the film's running time - their characters remain tragic.

It is a very powerful film. As a friend said after the screening, it tramples over you like a steam-roller. The emotional mix of the previous film "Head-on" had me cry, but crying releases the pain. This one doesn't let to release the tension even at the final scene. It will stay with you for days after.

With a small scale ensemble cast, The Edge of Heaven examines several themes through the lives of the many characters. Nejat Aksu (Baki Davrak) is a professor of literature in a German university and not happy about his father Ali's new live-in partner Yeter (Nursel Köse), a prostitute who Ali (Tuncel Kurtiz) has hired to stay with him. Yeter has an estranged daughter Ayten (Nurgül Yesilçay) who Nejat decides to track down in Turkey after a tragedy occurs in the family. However, unbeknownst to Yeter and Nejat, Ayten has already traveled to Germany to look for her mother and seek a refugee status as she is a member of a rebellious activist group in Turkey. In Germany she meets a female student Charlotte (Patrycia Ziolkowska) who offers her a place to stay and eventually follows her back to Turkey, much to her mother Susanne's (Hanna Schygulla) chagrin.

The two main story lines (those of Nejat / Yeter and Ayten / Charlotte) are presented after each other in a clear manner but the stories intertwine in many ways, often unnoticed by the characters, creating an extra feel of tragedy – the answer would be so close if only they knew each other! Besides the smaller instances of bad luck, the deaths of major characters are what end up driving the plot forwards, but in the end the message is hopeful; an understanding is what everybody is ultimately seeking.

Akin's calm direction and the good performances throughout easily raise The Edge of Heaven among the best Turkish films I've seen (even though I have only seen a handful). The themes of finding one's true calling in life, the forgiving nature of parent–child relationships and the subpar human rights situation in Turkey are all explored without haste, always maintaining the balance between the different aspects of the story. For anyone who hasn't seen many Turkish films, The Edge of Heaven could be a good starting place, but I imagine it is also worth seeing for those more familiar with the country's cinema.