The Edge of Heaven

Director Fatih Akin

Madman Entertainment 2009

R4 DVD

(Alternative titles On The Other Side, Auf Der Anderen Seite, Yasamin Kiyisinda)

Turkish, German, English. Subtitled in white over picture.

This is an unusual but rather compelling film, following six people as their lives become indirectly involved through each others’ tragedies. It is more a series of short stories, each taking up from where the previous character leaves off.

We start in Bremen in Germany where Yeter, a Turkish illegal immigrant, is working as a prostitute. She is being harassed by local Turkish Muslims, but needs to keep working to send money home to her daughter. She meets Ali (Tuncel Kurtiz), another Turkish immigrant. He is a lonely widower and invites her to live with him for company and sex. At Ali’s home she meets Nejat (Baki Davrak), Ali’s son, and they become fond of each other. Ali in a fit of drunken jealousy kills Yeter and is jailed.

The storyline now switches to Nejat. He returns to Turkey to find Yeter’s daughter to tell her what has happened. He is unsuccessful, because Ayten, the daughter, is involved in a Kurdish freedom movement and is wanted by the police. She was involved in a riot in which a policeman was killed and his gun stolen. Ayten has hidden the gun and fled to Germany, where she is now looking for her mother.

Alone and destitute in Bremen she cannot find her mother. She is befriended by a German student, Lotte. A lesbian relationship develops, against the wishes of Lotte’s mother. When Ayten is picked up by the police and repatriated to Turkey Lotte follows her. Ayten asks her to retrieve the hidden gun and while doing so Lotte is accidentally killed.

Lotte’s mother comes to Turkey to find out what happened. The story continues as the characters keep becoming involved with each other. Most of the involvements end in tragedy.

The stories are particularly sad in that each character falls from a comparatively comfortable life into something darker because of their involvement with each other. None of the characters is particularly evil, but there is something inevitable and painful about the descent into chaos and tragedy as each life is destroyed.

A story like this could not be carried off without strong actors. Baki Davrak plays his role with sympathy as the young politically immature Professor caught in the political turmoil in Turkey. Nurgül Yesilçay plays the part of Ayten with intensity and toughness that befits a revolutionary, but she still manages to look lost and lonely and on the edge of breakdown as she searches for her mother or as she awaits deportation. Hanna Schygulla as Lotte’s mother gives a tremendous performance as the most sympathetic of the characters, lost in her grief at her daughter’s death and searching for some meaning in it all.

Although the story could be in danger of becoming lightweight, the strong acting and tight screenplay carry it off. It does not attempt to preach, although there seems to be plenty to work on – political repression, violent protest, treatment of illegal immigrants. The film simply shows the intertwining of the lives of a group of people against the problems of modern Europe. It thoroughly deserves the awards it has achieved.

This review will appear in Volume 2:1 (2009) of the digital and print edition of Synergy Magazine.

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