You can’t be so irresponsible in writing the script and shooting. Just because the topic of suicide is raised does not mean that the film should be kept in the format of sadness and longing. And do not pay attention to insignificant or not so significant details, they are like ballast. If you need a tool that immerses you in sleep, this film is quite suitable. Or (otherwise) watch in fastening and acceleration mode. Or, at worst, stop recording, unless you are a fan of someone involved in the filming process or you do not like this type of storytelling. P.S. Again, the awards work in reverse for me, and probably the more of them, the less likely it is that the film suits me (not necessarily that I highly appreciate it, but at least I will be able to give some score, even the lowest).
Fatih Akin, “Gegen die Wand,” 2003. I have been thinking about this movie since yesterday. The director, as always, develops the topic of Turkish immigrants in Germany, but this time in a very extreme version. The film is made extremely naturalistic, which at times just repels me, especially in the themes of alcoholism and aggression, sex scenes are also very frank, especially given the fact that they were filmed by Turkish women. Solid spoilers. The main character Kakhit (Birol Junel) leads an almost antisocial lifestyle - lives in an apartment, which he turned into a dumpster, gets drunk almost to the point of unconsciousness from day to day and one of these days decides to take his own life, directing his car into the wall of the house, but he manages to survive. At the hospital, he meets a girl named Sibel (Sibel Kekilli), who was there for the same reason, who immediately put her eye on him, deciding that he was fit to carry out her plans. That’s just the reasons for the heroes’ suicide are different – Kahit can’t come to terms with the loss of his beloved wife, who died, and Sibel struggles to break out of the bonds of his Turkish family, with whom she does not manage to lead a life so desired by her: “I want to live, I want to dance, I want to fuck.” And not just one guy. She is looking for someone with whom she can get married. Kahit at first just shuns her, but she does not abandon her idea, literally pursuing him. In the end, she gets her way, he goes to marry her parents, making up a story about how he works as a manager at the club (actually, he collects bottles there). My parents bought it and the wedding took place. After her, each of them continues to lead a habitual lifestyle, he still gets drunk and sniffs coke, fucks a familiar woman, she also drinks and smells, and also fucks with anyone. However, gradually their way of life changes, Sibel brings order to the house of Kahit, it turns out that she even knows how to cook. Finally, they realize that they care about each other. As Sibel is used to being seen as an accessible woman, she continues to be molested by the guy she once slept with, but now it ends badly for him - after he provoked Kahita at a bar, calling him a pimp Sibel and offering money, Kahit freaks out and kills this guy by hitting him on the head with a bottle. Naturally, he ends up in prison, Sibel visits him there and promises to wait. However, the clouds over her thicken, her family, learning about what happened, cuts her off from his family, and her brother is so simply ready to kill, and she runs to Istanbul to his cousin, who meets her quite affable and even takes a job in the hotel, where she works. However, Sibel is not satisfied with this, having held out for a short time, she again goes into all seriousness, until one day she is attacked on the street by peasants, whom to some extent she provoked. They beat her and one even stabbed her. A few years later, Kahit is released from prison, in which he managed to get rid of his addictions, and goes to Istanbul to Sibel, hoping to find happiness with her. However, she has a new life with a new man and even a daughter. True, they meet, but then she does not come, he goes to his hometown alone. The film is considered a film about the search for and finding their identity, the Turks there in Germany still remain strangers, so in this case, the return to their homeland is proposed as a way out, not only for Kahit, who has lived in Germany for 30 years, but also for Sibel, who was already born in Germany. What if it's head-to-wall again? Maybe he had a dream about this incident? Of course, from the point of view of displaying the life of such a category of people, the film is very vital, obviously, but their life does not cause much sympathy in me, I have my own attitude to alcoholics, I have had to observe and encounter in life, it is very difficult not only for them who are going to such self-destruction, because this is how it ends in many cases, but also for people around them, it is impossible to coexist with such people, no matter how hard you try. The actors were chosen really well, the performer of the role of Kahit was an alcoholic himself in life, then, like Kahit, quit drinking, but this did not save him from an early death. And the actress in the role of Sibel, as it turned out, starred in porn films, which was very negatively perceived by the German-Turkish public. But the film is certainly strong, though, watched with some effort.
Love can bring to life both confusion and order, but it is excluded that the first can be born second.
Inexplicably, between the two main characters, Jahit and Sibel, even more incomprehensible feelings appear. Director and screenwriter of the film Fatih Akin, whose name is very often heard at festivals and film awards, levels any logic of the appearance of love, bringing two characters with suicidal tendencies in a mental hospital, and arranging a fast fictitious wedding, which ends with a quarrel. Akin repeatedly issues claims of marriage, turning it into an absurd restriction that does not give the heroes love, and also uses it to ridicule the ossification of the conservative traditions of the Turks.
The greatest resistance to outdated norms is shown through Sibel, who symbolically fights her way to a free sex life. Her line depicts the rejection of the current attitude towards women in Turkish society. However, Sibel also shows a traditional female attraction to order and home comfort. She puts in order rather like a dump apartment Jahit, and the scene of cooking dinner is pure comfort and magic.
But the story is still more personal, built on feelings and experiences, and not important social messages, which here serve only as a lining and cause of the main events.
From the usual point of view, Sibel destroys Jahit’s life, but through a dramatic change in his behavior and words, it becomes clear that this is not the case at all. Even before the suicide attempt, he was already lost and dead. Sibel gives him the strength to survive all the trials and finally change his world.
Despite the obvious course of self-destruction, illogicality, even the stupidity of the main characters, the directing and acting work of Birol Unel and Sibel Kekilli make you sympathize, experience and love them. Unel's eyes permeate us. We say "Come on, Sibel" with her.
Fatih Akin, combining German pragmatism and Turkish emotionality, skillfully captures every moment when the viewer, eager for a happy ending, breathes out and relaxes, and returns the action to another unforeseen channel. There is, of course, a question of excessive rudeness, cruelty and bloodshed, although within the framework of this film, all this seems quite justified. Inserts with the classic performance of Turkish songs, the story is likened to the ballad that love can only be a bridge to happiness and a stable life, a catalyst for the metamorphosis that we see in the example of Jahit and Sibel, whose characters are simply undergoing an extraordinary transformation. In Head Against the Wall, love is a tool for establishing a person, the further preservation or presence of which after successful repair is not necessary, especially if things appear much more important.
We all love heroes who are unlike others, who choose their own path, who prove their truth - bright individuals who have managed to resist the hanzhen morality of society.
But for whom hypocrisy, and for whom immutable values are family, national, religious, which have been followed for centuries and in which there is a deeper meaning than that which people ' free' and ' independent' called the unification of the individual, dictatorship and other pseudo-liberal nonsense. The hypocrisy of discord is a meager thought, but it has the right to exist.
The idea of the film (as I see it), according to which the heroine goes into a break, sending to hell the religious canons and their parents (really, as it seemed to me, worried about her and wishing her well) does not cause me personally the slightest sympathy and agreement.
Yeah, poor Sibel. To what it brought fiends-parents and cannibals-brothers. Honestly, disgusting. Not even considering her fucking nature, she's unpleasant from the first shot. For Sibel to feel free - it's hanging out in bars, taking pictures of men, fucking and building up, increasing sexual experience. How much should it itch and groan to jump into bed immediately after the wedding?
No, well, let’s say that the girl really wanted a different life, dreamed of a marriage for love, about a special relationship, about someone in particular and violated religious dogmas, having entered into sexual intercourse before marriage with some hero of our time, and with the same scum Kahit. It would be easier and more understandable... Or was that the director’s idea? Weird, kind of slurred. Like that grandmother sitting at the entrance, I can only shout: 'So-so!'and 'Alcoholic!'.
Cahit, by the way, is not such a repulsive hero. A person of difficult fate - this can be attributed to his lifestyle and emotional disability.
The whole picture did not elicit my sympathy. I can't tell you anything. Neither the camera work, nor the dialogues, nor the plot receivers made the desired impression. Sitting down to watch the movie, I expected much more. The reason why there are so many positive reviews and no negative reviews - other than mine - is clear to me, but not worth discussing. Clearly overrated film, that's all.
A powerful, memorable film was directed by German-Turkish director Fatih Akin. The protagonist, Jahit Tomruk, who lost his wife and descended to the bottom of Hamburg, no longer understands what he lives for.
There are many ways to kill yourself. Why did you choose the wall?
With one simple question, the director draws in the viewer’s imagination a picture of his hero’s life before the turning point, helps him understand. Before us is a man who does not seek to find lost peace of mind. When existence becomes meaningless, everyday life is constantly beaten against the wall, especially if, in addition to internal problems, the situation is aggravated by external “charms” of the migrant’s situation. But once dispersed and hitting the wall with all your might, you can suddenly break through the entrance to a new life.
“End your life if you want, you don’t have to die.” End your life here and start somewhere else.
When life has no meaning, man ceases to be its bearer. It's empty. Which means he's weak. In the east, it would be said that it has no balance between Yin and Yang. What does this man need to restore balance? Maybe who? Of course, a woman. A woman who is able to love, but most importantly - a woman who can fall in love. Such a woman appeared - and immediately turned the life of Jahit Tomruk. When she burst into the hurricane, she simply didn’t let him die any more, she did it instead. Just in my own way. But he's a man - he can't let her solve his problems, even unconsciously. Is it possible at all for them, emerging from the abyss of despair... or madness, to meet each other? The path to absolute change is open. This is the first and most logical, self-imposed interpretation of the plot.
But there is another. Let’s not forget that this is a Turkish film. The director often lets us know that. For example, mentioning in the film that the Turks have surnames with meaning. If we translate the surname Tomruk, we will know what it means. And this is a completely different image of this person. You can imagine him dying, or even dead. But you can see something else - this is uncut diamond. This is a person who only needs to be directed, a person who is basically not bad, but has lost his path, so, I think, believes Fatih Akin. Yes, this person can lose any human appearance, but he can rise, there is always potential in the workpiece. Not everything is lost, but someone has to work to implement it. A man should always look for a woman. The director gave her the no less telling name Sibel Güner. Guner means day. Before you describe her, perhaps the true main character, since she is the “smith” who is able to breathe new life into the workpiece, you need to answer one question: what is a day? In this case, the day is something bright, hot, passionate, the day is the sun. But the sun can have an eclipse. In ancient times, people were always afraid that once the sun disappeared, the sun would not return. But it always came back and warmed up again. And, of course, the solar cycle. In this interpretation, Sibel’s first encounter with Jahit is a timid dawn. The bright life after marriage is noon. A fall after breaking up with your husband is a sunset. But the wheel is spinning, the sun is not gone forever - there will be a new dawn. Only one thing is clear, whatever it was for both, however it ends - it is one for two, because once Jahit was warmed by her rays, Sibel forever left a strip of tan on his skin.
10 out of 10
The film can be watched many times and find something new, although the movie, to put it mildly, is not pleasant, hard, people-scum, some pubs-discotheques, drugs, sometimes porn and a lot of blood. But the film, paradoxically, came out bright.
The film is interesting psychological details, how the inner world of the characters changes, how love is born. What is suffering from this punk bum, why did he decide to crash into the wall? The theme is Depech Mode I Feel You. The cause of its degradation is the death of his beloved wife, a hodzhina. Sibel is not as simple as it might seem the first time. On the surface, her Turkish family wants to marry her off and prevents her from dating men. She wants to dance and be free and change partners. In the film, all these aspirations of youth are shown rigidly, without smoothing corners, at extremes. Sibel appears as a drug addict-nymphomaniac. But what drives Sibel? She just lacked love. The family, seemingly caring and wishing her well, in fact, is indifferent to her: the main thing for them is to observe decency. But they did not ask who Sibel was marrying, only the ceremony was important to them. And Sibel just wanted to draw their attention to herself by protesting against traditional values, by a sham marriage. But no one wanted her until this old bum came along. He's got the same situation. Sibel with her female attention - repairing in his hole, cooking set him up in a romantic way, because he had no one to love. And that's where the drama begins. Sibel refused physical intimacy with him, because she was most afraid of being like everyone else - a married, unfree woman. She was too young for that. But after losing Chait, realizing that he was the only person who loved her and stood up for her dubious honor and dignity, she changed, grew up. But she was alone. They were both weak people, Sibel, after another series of brawls with drugs and a fight, and without waiting for death from a knife, found her quiet harbor - met a man who sheltered her, began to take care of her. She gave birth to a daughter and would have been fine, but she got out of Chiit prison. But Sibel, between her own doubtful happiness, chose happiness for her daughter, she knew how important it was for a child to grow up in a normal, loving family, she could not deprive her daughter of her own father. Did he love Chait? Sibel is like a cat that gets used to a new owner.
I’m confused about who I am... and it seems to me that too, you will forget about me that I will become like them.
I will say right away that I definitely liked the film. This film definitely deserves special attention! Pulled the strings inside, hit it emotionally. Bravo director! Bravo actors!
Far from being a young man who has lost love, faith and hope, the only joy is sex, drugs and rock 'n' roll. In this picture, it is interesting to show how indifference he relates to everything in the circle. He is a depressing alcoholic and melancholic with elements of psychosis and suicidal tendencies. He doesn’t care about anything... he has freedom and emptiness inside.
She, a young woman, is the complete opposite of him and at the same time so similar to him, hot, hot-tempered, daring. Ready to do anything for freedom and independence! She doesn't know what she wants, she's just as confused as he is. All she needs is independence from her parents and freedom.
What can unite these two people? An accident, just an accident. Life pushes them against their heads, gives them a chance to find love and happiness. She begins to reach out to him, but he stubbornly ignores it and pushes it away, closes his eyes and continues to live as he sees fit... and only then realizes that she is very dear to him, that she is exactly the part, the spark that he so missed in his gray, gloomy world. But not everything is so simple... everyone deserves exactly the life he created himself.
Take a look at yourself and draw conclusions.
P.S. I was able to see in this film elements of sincere tenderness and love, as well as cruel injustice. I recommend the film, a very good picture in my opinion. Makes you think about some things. My assessment
In the collective unconscious, the idea that we will admire the next sunset of Europe from the minarets of the Notre Dame Mosque of Paris is firmly rooted, but in fact not so long ago – five years, no more. It was launched, it seems, by extensive TV reports of Channel One about the unrest in the Paris suburbs of the 2005 model. The real shock for the domestic viewer was then not so much the shooting of cemeteries turned into ashes cars from San Denis and Villiers-les-Belles, as sketches of the everyday life of the inhabitants of the above-mentioned quarters, on the streets of which the camera practically did not meet European faces. It seemed that the operators were broadcasting news from Algeria, Benin, Senegal – from anywhere, but not from the blessed country called France, familiar to everyone from the songs of Piaf and the novel The Three Musketeers. I remember the reactions of people - disappointed, annoyed, angry (or even deprived of the Beautiful Dalek - the last refuge of the soul!). For the most part, they genuinely wondered why the French government was inactive instead of expelling “all this rubbish” out of the country, back to where they had come from. My invincible argument is that the pogromists and intruders come mainly from the second or third generation of immigrants, that they were born in France, do not speak any language other than French, and there is simply no place to expel them, because here their home convinced no one. Consider Mohammed, Mustafa and Lukunka Nduka-do What full-fledged French philistine consciousness refused outright.
Here it would be possible to continue the logical series, noting that in the same way the European podzols reject the seedlings of foreign breeds, trying to cling to them with their roots, and therefore it is not surprising that the rejected adapt as they can, turning into ponds-parasites, eroding inhospitable soil, drowning and slaughtering the local young - and standing on the road of politically correct tear-pressors for the beautiful left, reliably protected by concierges and by the immigration costs - it is impossible to provide for themselves with the immigration costs. Fatih Akin, beginning his own tricolor trilogy, rejected this path with almost fierce categoricalness. His "Head to the Wall" is essentially about the same as the reports from San Denis - about immanent immigrant non-membership, exclusion, homelessness and homelessness, but on an existential, not material level. The fate of the genetic code turns into Akin’s no less ruthless dictate of the cultural code. It is impossible to become a natural blonde without having generations of Nordic ancestors behind you - you can burn your hair with peroxide (and irreparably spoil them), but who will you deceive by this? Similarly, Western views and theories, without being born with them in genes, can be assimilated only naively and imitatively, and they will also destroy the soul that is not formatted for them. The aesthetics of disintegration a la by Jim Morrison and Kurt Cobain, which do not rely on the centuries-old tradition of European decadence, as well as the obsession with vulgar feminism, which has not internalized the accompanying antitheses, self-ironies and other implications lead only to self-destruction. And even love, miraculously breaking through the heaps of ideological junk, being conscious and squeezed into Lawrence’s definition of freedom together, can not save anyone.
Oddly enough, for all its psychological unbearability, nervous freshness, obsession with death, Akin’s film remains one of the most optimistic examples of “big” cinema in the last twenty years. Underneath a thin layer of alluvial European deadness, there is a huge thirst for life and a huge potential for renewal and rebirth, no matter what happens, no matter how sideways life turns. Akin, fortunately, does not exploit (and does not even subtly suggest to the viewer) the common ideas about the “fertilizing” mission of immigrants, designed to pour fresh vitality into the tired European veins – his characters just return to their origins and are saved by them alone – but the unimitated, magmatic energy that beats from the screen speaks for itself. The immigrant drama “Head Against the Wall”, made by a European but very superficially educated Turk, became the first German film in ten years to be awarded the main prize of the Berlinale. This is the new Europe, and not its decline.
Our world has become so selfish that we may never wonder who lives around us. What are their relationships with family, relatives and friends, whether they have best friends or true love? I felt sorry for the main character Chiita because he was single, he had family and friends. But one fine or unfortunate day, for no reason, a girl falls on his head with a simple but very serious question.
"Will you marry me?" - this is the meaning of this picture, the plot revolves around it, in the atmosphere of this phrase the main characters live. I can’t imagine how their lives would have been without each other. Chiet probably hit the wall again, and Sybil would have killed her brother. However, they appeared to each other. They married, but the marriage between them had the status of fictitious, because there was no love between them, and in the beginning even friendship. But when love began to arise after friendship between them, then you can not talk about fictitiousness.
There is a lot of dirt and vulgarity in the film, too much. Even though the manufacturers warned me about it, Germany did. Because of this dirt, the film can be divided into two parts, the second part is bright shots, which talk only about love. This is the second film I have seen by Fatih Akin (the first was Aztec Sun (2000)). Looking at his progress over four years, from a kind and cheerful comedy to a tough and realistic drama, there was an interest in his other works.
The cast of this film is very well selected. Probably no one would have better portrayed the old, groomed introvert Chiita than Birol Junel. Such a bright role, it is impossible not to empathize with Chiitu, he can be understood because there are a fair number of people like him or almost like him. As for Sibel Kekilli, for some reason it seemed to me that the actress was playing herself. German of Turkish origin, she faced the same situations at home as her heroine. The role is performed perfectly, not for nothing she was awarded a huge number of awards.
I didn’t like the second part of the film, everything happened unexpectedly and inexplicably. This is not how everything should be in the life of Sibel and Chiita, not so.
7 out of 10
The main destructive power lies in the people themselves. In an impetuous girl who seeks to get all the pleasures of the world at once, without being burdened with neither obligations, nor morality, nor the burden of responsibility. He is a man who has died in this world and in the hereafter. In too zealously guarding their national traditions relatives who can kill for the slightest fault. Even in a reasonable successful woman drowned in the cycle of routine and mundaneity. Everyone destroys themselves and their lives in their own way.
This is how the characters of the film “Head against the Wall” appear before the viewer. Sibel is a desperate girl who wants to use her youth to its fullest and enjoy simple earthly joys like sex, dancing and partying. Ironically, she was “lucky” to be born into a Muslim family, where traditions are sacred and her views on life are considered unacceptable. The way out of his unenviable position Sibel sees either suicide or marriage. Since attempts to end her life were unsuccessful, the heroine stops on the second option, and chooses Kahita as a betrothed. Kahit is far from the girl’s ideas about the ideal husband – earns a living by collecting bottles in the bar, and in his spare time he drinks, smokes, consumes drugs, arranges fights in the bar, and once completely disperses and rams a wall with a car. Then he goes to the same clinic with Sibel. However, the girl needs a husband only as a guarantor of independence from parental care, so she boldly appeals to Kahit with the phrase: "Marry me!" In essence, marriage for both is a gesture of despair and an attempt to escape from the hopeless longing and monotony of existence.
High Relationships
Inside this cocktail of hopelessness, recklessness, and indifference, a feeling is suddenly born. Light, kind, gentle and such a fragile feeling, which, it would seem, has no place among all this dirt. May the fans of the film forgive me, but I can’t call it love. However, I can say that two lost souls find each other in a moment of extreme despair. Suddenly there is someone who has nothing to lose, nothing to cherish and therefore nothing to hold on to in this world. And Kahit and Sibel become support and support for each other, however, still drowning in vices and indulging in their weaknesses. But now together. And most importantly, there is a light of hope, small joys like dancing together in the kitchen are born, the desire of the characters to take care of each other becomes noticeable. The relationship of fictitious spouses is very strange and far from classical - this is clearly shown from the very first day of their married life. Imagine this picture. A perfectly happy bride walks the morning after the wedding down the street. A wide smile shines on her face, reflecting grace and love for the whole world. Such a scene would not be so piquant and would not deserve attention, if not for one “but”: it does not come from her fiancé. However, despite the imperfection and non-standard relations of the couple, there is a certain connection between them, sincere and healing for both.
Sobering up and reviving
Any action, good or bad, has consequences. Best of all, it is Sibel who is to be convinced of this - a young, daring and reckless, so enthusiastic about the cycle of free life that there is not a second to think about what this may eventually turn out. Fortunately for the viewer, Fatih Akin is a gracious director, because he gives the viewer hope. After all the kicks of fate, after unsuccessful attempts to break through the wall of misunderstanding between themselves and the surrounding world, his heroes still find peace. We see Sibel as an adult, much more intelligent and responsible for her actions, because she already has someone to lose. Yes, there is still that spark in her soul that draws her into a whirlwind of passion and adventure, but still the mind takes over the feelings. Kahit is also different, much more human and certainly much more alive. Not as doomed as before. Both heroes, albeit after a difficult ordeal, are reborn and begin a new life. Will she be happier? Unknown. But hope is always a good thing, right?
As a result, I can say that the film “Head Against the Wall” is a wild mixture of sensuality, cruelty, hopelessness and hope. It is multifaceted and complex enough to understand, it can only be felt. To be honest, I have not been able to do this fully. However, it is worth trying your luck because the film is definitely not perfect and quite interesting.
7 out of 10
Somehow I did not get my impressions into the general direction of the flow. It was promised ' blood-love' and a little black. There was blood and shrapnel and blood from shrapnel and drugs and vodka and sex. The only thing I haven’t seen or found is love. There was jealousy, malice, murder on the basis of jealousy, there was attachment, or rather, a born love addiction, but love - no, nothing like that.
If we talk about emotions, the film evokes a lot of them, different and very strong, generally strong film. But the aftertaste from it remains something like a hangover or from a winded sprat from a jar. And very big doubts cause the finale, where the main character has a family, a loving and caring husband (implied) and a cute healthy daughter. It is hard to believe that such a fabulous turn of events is possible in life if all the actions of the heroes for several years are chaotic and purely destructive.
It's definitely worth watching. But do not expect from viewing positive energy or that it will be possible to find some answers for yourself. But you can find out what is better not to do, even if you really want to and even if someone or everyone is angry.
And in the dry residue after watching positive emotions (of which there are very few), there remained, oddly enough, sympathy and reflections about the Sibel family, about the family that abandoned it, observing traditions, in the film - tyrants, from whom she is saved by all the ways that are available to her. In the first shots, they gathered at a table in the hospital, where Sibel was undergoing treatment after a suicide attempt, sharply express their attitude to her act, speaking in the language of religion and condemnation, rather than love and care, which causes irritation, rejection and even anger. But later, the same family gives her away under such dubious circumstances that it is not possible to call their consent as a gift. And Sibel's brother, when he finds out that her husband is not the director of the bar, but collects bottles there, the only thing he asks and asks, judging by the acting, is whether he really loves his sister. And the answer is yes, he does. And the obedience of Sibel’s mother is not indifference and conciliation, but a very deep understanding. And the eyes of Father Sibel, which have such love and pain, but also the courage to accept this pain and stand. Here all the human and warm emotions remained prisoners for me in this family, and the rest of the heavy fuss of the main characters, occupying 90% of the picture, as a background for this family drama.
Therefore, only
He was dead before he met her, and he came to life.
Probably the apartments of single bachelors disappointed in life, all the same, at least mine is about the same as Kahit's. And perhaps all people of this kind are afraid to dream of happiness, because they believe that if it was, it is long gone, and whether they are worthy of a new, they are not sure. If this is how to look at life, then you can head against the wall, or maybe a broken bottle through the veins ... there are of course other ways, but you do not want to suffer much at the same time, you want to quickly ...
Kahit scored a long time ago on his personal life because he survived a tragedy that took him outside of normal society, he was just satisfied that he was still alive. Such people are unable to live in the past, do not want to live in the present, and do not hope for the future, but fate is not blind, it is ready to take pity on the fallen. Kakhit, as if by lot, got Sibel - a girl tired of the patriarchal foundations of her culture and family, and struggling to escape from this stuffy punishment cell, killing her as a person who has the right to choose her own path. Such a mixture promises nothing but drama.
Very special dialogues in the film, for example:
Are you okay?
- What makes you think?
- You fuck better.
I just love it! The film is full of such lively and believable communication that connects it with life itself.
It seems to me that Fatih Akin did not invent this story, but took it from the very real life of real people, which is why it carries such strength and persuasiveness. By the way, the actress who plays Sibel is called the same, and it was her debut as an actress, except for roles in the adult film category. Coincidence?! Perhaps, but here you can build various guesses and conjectures.
This is a film about the fate of a person who intuitively strives for freedom in a pious, religious culture, about the path that a person chooses himself, and not someone else for him.
Chait, a 40-year-old Turkish man who has lost his lover, collects empty bottles in a Hamburg nightclub. Desperate to return to reality, he decides to take his own life and finds nothing better than to crash a full-speed car into a brick wall. However, instead of permanent residence in the next world, Chait gets a bed in a psychiatric clinic, where fate brings him to an eccentric person named Sibel - a 20-year-old Turkish woman with suicidal tendencies.
On the first day of dating, Sibel offers Chait to get married. By entering into a fictitious agreement with a Turk-alkash, Sibel hopes to get the desired independence from his family, or else what good to expect from life if his brother is ready to break your nose just for the fact that you hug a guy. All Sibel wants is to live without looking back - go to discotheques and fuck whoever comes in handy. In her eyes, a drunken loser Chait, who is not able to live a day without a can of beer, can become the optimal cover from vigilant and annoying parents.
Tea is a lot puzzled, but still gives up under the pressure of a young countrywoman: now, at least, there will be someone to go for beer. And now there is an acquaintance with parents and a wedding ceremony. This is how this strange family union is formed, which, however, will not wait for the desired splendor. Meanwhile, the young people who settled in Chait’s apartment begin to lead a free life and willy-nilly look at each other. Thus begins a battle between them for what is called love.
In poetry there is nothing tasteless and vulgar, how to rhyme “love” and “blood”: 30-year-old German Turk Fatih Akin for two hours actually doing just that. And he does it without irony and postmodern curtsey, which is called “in the blue eye”. And it turns out not just folding, but almost genius. In the immediacy of the presentation of the story and the emotional force that sweeps cleaner than other films Kusturica.
The question is, where does what come from? Akin never studied film. But as a child, he managed to review tons of films - the benefit of the neighbors had their own video store. At sixteen he became an actor and earned this craft until the age of twenty. At 25, he made his first film as a director because he could not find a director for his script. And after another 5 years, a young self-taught girl gave out such a temperamental and at the same time so wise film that it is time to finish with this case. Since he said so much about life, it is hardly possible to add something fundamental.
But the four previous creations of Akin never gave reason to believe in the genius of the creator. Every time he consciously filmed what was closer, what was literally in front of his eyes. One way or another, the problems of the first paintings (Fast and without pain, In July, Solino) unfolded around the immigrant theme. Suddenly, he made Cinema, a desperate and beautiful film that frantically explodes the traditions of those politically correct opuses that try, with more or less success, to imitate ethnic conflicts.
In Gegen Die Wand, everything begins almost as an anecdote on a fashionable emigrant theme, but gradually the story is gaining such intensity that by the end of the drama from the life of Turkish suicides, with the blood and songs of Depeche Mode, turns into an existential tragedy that has forgotten how to shoot, perhaps, since the “Last Tango in Paris”. Like Bertolucci, Akin’s literal suicide attempt – to crash into brickwork – is transformed into a metaphor: the heroes beat their heads against a wall of misunderstanding and disunity. Like Bertolucci, love merges in an embrace with death and circles in a dance that, although not the last, gives a chance to truly appreciate the life of the desperate.
In the finale, Sibel, after a series of new throws and suicide provocations, finds the very stability from which she so desperately tried to escape. And then, unexpectedly, the liberal attitude of the picture, as if designed to shake or question the archaic foundations, turns into its complete opposite. Confrontation with Muslim traditions eventually becomes the anthem of the clan cult. And this semantic castling turns out to be another, perhaps the most important revelation of the film.
Akin reminded Fassbinder of his approach to cinema: he did everything as if for the first time. Maybe that’s why the East was as pragmatic as the West. Now it has become finally clear that there is only one place on Earth where you can hide from the universal coldness - only in your own heart.
The film's unplanned but well-deserved triumph at the Berlin Festival, where it hit at the last minute, turned into a scandal. It turns out that cunning reporters dug up the tapes, in which before incognito managed to star 23-year-old debutante Sibel Kekilli, who played her namesake here. They turned out to be ten pornographic pictures in which an atypical Turkish beauty secretly from her family has been earning a living for two years, hiding under various pseudonyms. After the publication of these materials, Sibel’s parents (just like in the film) almost disowned their daughter.
However, after the Berlin celebration, Kekilli instantly became a star of a different scale and soon signed several serious contracts that had nothing to do with naked cinema. The fact that this is a girl of rare talent says at least the fact that she bypassed during the casting of 350 competitors, probably craving this job no less. Something similar happened with the 42-year-old Turk Birol Yunel, by then for 15 years trading his talent in serial-television stupidity and passing B-class cinema. They both banged their heads against the wall for a long time before breaking through it in February 2004.
Have you been waiting for a drama about the fate of a Muslim woman? And the main character is a swiveltail, dreaming of thirty-three pleasures at once. Do you think that the wall in the title is built on age-old prejudices that have lost meaning in our time? But it turns out that a Turkish girl can easily abandon the traditions of her people and marry the first person she meets. Do you think that if there were two suicides at the beginning of the film, it would be tragic? But you're already laughing at fictitious lovers trying to find a way of mutually beneficial coexistence without emotional attachment.
Fatih Akin made a film about love, but just as Germans everywhere return to the subject of fascism, a dual-citizen director cannot turn a blind eye to the contradictions of Eastern and European cultures. No one is trying to break his head against the wall for national tolerance and the friendship of peoples here: ethnological space is created on stones as old as the world, history and gradually eats the viewer along with all his stereotypes. Therefore, the discussion of the social significance of the picture becomes superfluous and deliberately deceives the potential viewer.
Before us is just a sentimental story with an ethnic flavor, devoid of the standard manifestations of romantic feelings in cinema. Acquaintance in the rehabilitation center, where Sibel and Kahit got on a double-edged desire to commit suicide, grows into an awkward marriage of convenience and an indifferent family life. Both try to escape from problems, seek salvation in alcohol and promiscuous sex, but find (completely unexpected to themselves, but not to the viewer) in each other. The cell of society, which at first seemed sick and ugly, fulfills its function and binds people in strong bonds. One wonders whether the Muslim tradition of “selling” marriage is so bad if a drop of understanding and care can turn into an ocean of overwhelming feelings. Sibel and Kahit did not fall in love at first sight or even at second sight. Love opened where the abyss of separation and long waiting lay. Fictitious marriage no longer covered the poverty of their existence, and, left alone with himself, each answered the question of what life he chooses.
7 out of 10
This wonderful singer and orchestra. The car is at breakneck speed. Flowing drops of bright maroon blood. Dancing with bloodstained hands. Infinite. Drunk. Sumbum. Crazy dancing. Passionate animal sex. Making love, the same blood flowing down His hands and His face. Eyes. These are truly unstoppable, real.
These are all fragments of the film itself. It's all made up of them. And the beauty and the horror is that they hurt, they scratch, they leave deep scars. This is a single, wonderful in its genre picture, which consists of fragments-fragments. To be honest, I do not want to write boring and primitive things about the director, the country-producer of the film, the actors, the plot. I just want to share my feelings, which, by the way, overwhelmed after watching. It's definitely a dirty movie. It smells like German porn (a feeling added by former porn actress Sibel Kekilli), beer, something stale, tart, sticky, nasty. But there is something elusively tender, touching, us-so-so-so-so. And with each story, this feeling grows and grows. And there's some purity. But that purity is dead. Do you understand?
In general, this is definitely an art house work. Not everyone will understand. And I'm not implying intelligence, it's about feeling. Just not everyone will be interested in experiencing these feelings, which visited me.
Anyone who's been hooked, look at that. I don't think you'll regret it.
P.S. The storyline, by the way, is also interesting. There is love, friends, there is. But it happens to be different... Sometimes it hurts a lot. Before the blood.
10 out of 10