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Directed by Fatih Akin
Written by Fatih Akin
Starring: Nurgül Yeilçay, Baki Davrak, Tuncel Kurtiz, Hanna Schygulla, Patrycia Ziolkowska, Nursel Köse
Running time 122 min.
Language German and Turkish
The Edge of Heaven revolves around Turkey and Germany. The characters travel between these countries and so travel through their own lives. A recurring theme through the entire movie is death and how each protagonist in the movie reacts to it in their own way. The story travels at a slow pace without any quickening of heartbeats at any moment as it follows a smooth and calm flow through each character’s life.
Retired widower Ali, a Turkish immigrant living in the German city of Bremen, believes to have found a solution to his loneliness as he offers Turkey-born prostitute Yeter a monthly payment to quit whoring and move in. His son Nejat, a professor of German literature, initially disapproves of Ali’s choice of Yeter as a live-in girlfriend. However, he respects her when he discovers that she sends money back home to Turkey for her daughter’s college education.
Tension arises between Nejat and his father as Ali becomes obsessed that Yeter and his son may have become lovers. Yeter’s sudden death, an accident caused by a drunken blow from Ali, serves to distance father and son further from each other emotionally. Ali is imprisoned and later deported to Turkey where he returns to his home town.
Nejat travels to Istanbul to search for Yeter’s daughter Ayten and hopes to help pay for her education. He soon decides to settle in Turkey, running the German bookshop in Istanbul – in order to find Ayten, and also because being in Turkey reawakens his Turkish identity. He is not aware of the fact that political activist Ayten is on the run from the Turkish police and is currently staying in Germany, hiding as an illegal immigrant and searching for her mother – nor that she had been present in one of his own lectures, sleeping in a corner of the lecture hall.
Penniless Ayten becomes friends and lovers with Lotte, a student who invites rebellious Ayten to stay in her home, a gesture which is not particularly welcome by her mother Susanne. While driving, Lotte and Ayten are stopped in a regular police check and Ayten runs from the car. She is caught and the police learn of her false identity and deported to Turkey. Lotte follows her to Turkey supported by her mom, feeling it’s a passing fad in her daughter’s rebellious streak.
Meeting Ayten in prison, Lotte follows her imprisoned lover’s request and collects a gun hidden in a secret place. After doing that, Lotte’s purse, with the gun in it, is snatched by some small boys. She chases them and finds them sniffing glue and looking over the items in her purse; one boy is inspecting the found gun. She demands it back, after which the boy points at her and fires, to his surprise killing her.
The death of Lotte is an international incident, and authorities offer Ayten leniance in exchange for information leading to the resolution of the incident. After a visit by Susanne in prison during which she tells Ayten she wants to help her get out of prison, Ayten is so moved that she recants her political activities and is set free.
Susanne offers Ayten a place to stay with her at Nejat’s house. Despite crossing paths several times throughout the film, neither Ayten’s search for her mother nor Nejat’s search for Ayten are ever resolved.
Following emotional moments with Susanne, where her questions regarding Islam causes him to recall childhood memories of his father’s love for him, Nejat journeys to reunite with his father, and the film ends with his waiting on the shore with an impeding storm looming for his father to come back from fishing in the Black Sea.
A lot of questions and what if scenarios are left lingering in the viewer’s mind as they leave the movie hall. No wonder this movie was nominated to the Oscar’s best foreign film category in 2007 but couldn’t make it to the final short list.
Popularity: 1% [?]
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October 22nd, 2008 at 5:25 am
Just saw this film yesterday.
Don’t think I am going to see it again. It’s very good but very disturbing too as it kind of, not pushed me the edge of seat, but made me feel edgy pretty much through out. The story, the characters are seemingly from a normal background but it is just not so. Commonpeple can get embroled in such difficult situations (obviously because of the choices made) but the consequences can often be too hard to bear. But at times, for some, they come out, maybe, knowing better.