rating:
(out of
4 stars)Germany, Turkey; 2004
Directed by Faith Akin; produced by Stefan Schubert, Ralph Schwingel; based on the book by Faith Akin
Starring Nirol Ünel, Sibel Kekilli, Catrin Striebeck, Meltem Cumbul, Zarah McKenzie, Stefan Gebelhoff
'Gegen die Wand' deals with important issues - Turkish people living their way in Germany - and does this effectively so. The love story at the center is used the right way to show old traditional customs in a free and liberal country, and the problems it brings, but in the end it can't keep its focus right which takes away much of the impact. The film is an honest portrayal without much judgemental scenes. This is a relieve since attacking these traditional customs of Muslim countries is getting older than those traditions themselves.
Cahit (Birol Ünel) drives his car into a wall, which is understood as a suicide attempt. Inside the mental institution that sees him recovering, he meets Sibel (Sibel Kekilli) who suggests to get married right away. She wants space to have the free "Western" life as opposed to her Turkish life she leads at home. Cahit, although not really happy about it, agrees after Sibel slits her own wrists after his first rejection. Now Cahit has to deal with the Turkish customs he never participated in, as when he meets Sibels'parents and brothers, and Sibel is free most of the time.
She uses her freedom to party, sleep with random guys, drink and do drugs. The viewer feels this has to go wrong somewhere and it does after Cahit is beginning to really fall for Sibel. How this happens is for you to discover, but it gives the film an opportunity to enter serious grounds, which all leads up to sequences set in Istanbul, Turkey. Here the story comes to the more clichéd conclusion - the film should have ended twenty minutes earlier - and forces dramatic events into the screenplay to reach it.
Two thirds of this film are so strong I am willing to forgive the ending, which does not fit the film either. If anything, it shows that, in Istanbul at least, the first Turkish man you meet is up to no good. The second too. After a compelling, often funny, always interesting film I don't understand the point since it does not mean anything. 'Gegen die Wand' should be seen for the message it so strongly shows in the first hour and a half. Something could be said for both cultures, and meeting somewhere in the middle seems a nice place to arrive.