Movie of the Month ;HEAD ON (2004)

YOU HAVE those movies that immediately have all your attention from the start. This movie is one of them. A really great opening that set high expectation that gets delivered!A completely original love story that shames conventional Hollywood romantic comedies with its fresh take on love and loss .The characters felt authentic and possessed believable strengths and weaknesses. The actors turned in powerful performances and I find myself, the day after I saw the film, still thinking about the plot but mostly remembering the expressions on the actors' faces.

SYNOPSIS:

Alcoholic, drugged and hopeless German with Turkish roots Cahit Tomruk (Birol Ünen) lives like a pig in a small dirty apartment and survives collecting empty bottles in the night-club. One night, he gives up living, and hits his car against a wall. However, he survives the crash and is sent to a clinic, where he meets Sibel Güner (Sibel Kekilli), a younger German Turk, with suicidal tendencies. Sibel is the younger daughter of a conservative Turkish family, and proposes a fake marriage to Cahit, in order to permit her to leave her family; in return, she would share the rent of the flat, and she would cook and clean the place, and they could have independent lives. Cahit accepts, but while living with Sibel, he falls in love for her, until a tragedy happens.

REVIEW:

Winner of the top prize "Golden Bear" at the 2004 Berlin Festival, this German/Turkish co-production sets its tale of an impossible love against the backdrop of two clashing cultures. Though they are certainly both products of Eastern society, Cahit and Sibel have clearly adopted many of the ways of the democratized West. Cahit often scoffs at his Turkish upbringing and Sibel does just about everything she can to not be a model daughter and sister for her stultified family. The relationship between Cahit and Sibel is an amazingly complex and volatile one; on the one hand, they seem to be genuinely drawn to one another out of a sense of love and commitment, while, on the other, they are co-dependent in ways that wind up bringing harm to them both as individuals and as a couple. Yet, for all their problems together, we do sense that Sibel really does bring meaning to Cahit's existence.

What "HEAD ON" also does very well is the depiction of the clash of cultures between liberal, hedonistic Germans and conservative Turkish immigrants. This highlights a very important truth about some Turkish families who try to 'protect' their children so much that they end up suffocating them and driving the children into hating their lives. Like many girls, Sibil just wants to have a good time (which translates roughly to the traditional "sex, drugs and rock & roll"), but she is completely misunderstood by her traditional father, who values family honor above everything: after Sibil attempts suicide, her family is angry with her instead of concerned, and later she is even thrown completely out of the family for something she didn't even control. Things become even more dramatic when Sibel ends up in Turkey, where women aren't nearly as free as in Germany, and Sibel's liberal lifestyle gets her into serious trouble.

The movie's real power lies with the fact that the characters are truly multidimensional and complex, they experience conflicting emotions and desires and ultimately it is their incapacity to understand what is happening to them which leads to their downfall. They are so used to suffering and struggling and to using people and being used that when suddenly they fall in love, they can't even recognize what is happening to them until it is too late.

The two central performances are bloody amazing and a reminder of what real acting (and characterisation) is all about . Birol Ünel is one of the most interesting actors of today.He has the intelligence, charm and coolness that Mickey Rourke had in the '80s; his range as an actor is very wide,and he constantly offers an intensity of acting seldom seen in the movies.Also his ravaged good looks make him irresistibly watchable. Sibel Kekilli also turned in a great performance of a girl who is equal parts willful, vulnerable, naive and resilient. The direction is profound. Cinematographically this is a very beautiful movie. It's beautifully shot, and the combination of western and Turkish music fits the images very well and adds tremendously to the atmosphere. There are even some interludes of a Turkish orchestra, playing on the shores of the River Bosporus with the Aya Sofia mosque in the background. It's all very beautiful and very atmospheric.

The movie is just mainly above all a very realistic one. It's not afraid to show the dark, depressing, imperfect side of men. It's unlike any other film you've seen before. The storytelling is wonderful and makes this movie so much more than just a romantic movie, which in the end it really is. The drama/romance is mixed in a heavy way and it makes "HEAD ON " not always an easy one to watch but certainly an experience that you'll not easily forget.

Title : Gegen Die Wand

Director: Fatih Akin

Cast ; Birol Ünel ,Sibel Kekilli

Rated R for Sexuality ,Violence

Country : Turkey

Language : Turkish

DVD Features :Interview with director Fatih Akin

The Making of Gegen Die Wand

Cast and Director's Bios

Deleted Scenes with director's commentary

Trailer Links : www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Za3bFBtMdo

Torrent File Name :Gegen die Wand _ Head-On (2004) - Fatih Akin