Auf der anderen Seite / The Edge of Heaven

Film maker Fatih Akin gets a lot of credit here in Germany at the moment, and that is for sure what he deserves. As the magazine quantara.de outs it the ideas and views transported in his newest film ‘Auf der anderen Seite’ (The Edge of Heaven) – are indeed able to be Transcending Prejudice and Ideology.

At a time when re-emerging black-and-white categorisations threaten to dominate thinking between East and West, Akin makes a plea for nuances and shades of colour in between.

But not only this online journal sees in him the new hope transcend from narrowed Hollywood impressions directly to a globalized cinema, which gracefully acknowledges and incorporates famous auteur cinema – at least in using hints to it – but crosses the borders to wider – contemporary angle of view.
Already in a 2004 information the Goethe Institut sums up the following:

Filmmakers from immigrant families created a cinematic genre â€œbetween culturesâ€. These films observe day-to-day life in two (or more) cultures, which should not be taken to mean that precisely this kind of everyday life canâ€™t lead to calamity. The third-generation immigrant filmmakers were able to move between various cinematic traditions in terms of form and content.
MÃ©tissage, or mixed ethnicity, is most effectively portrayed as â€œpolyphonyâ€ in the work of Fatih Akin, who makes gangster movies, romances and comedies against the backdrop of life between cultures. …

And again the review on Ouantara.de continues to dwell very positively on Akin’s newest film ‘The Edge of Heaven‘, which has been awarded for best screenplay in Cannes, nevertheless some reviewers also found it lenghty at parts … but that is part of the theme I guess …

…. he inserts his themes so artfully into the narrative structure that the audience never loses tension, interest and curiosity. Between them he places breathtakingly atmospheric cinematic images, suddenly giving way to a new shock, a new twist in the tale â€“ and all along, his characters are so genuine that one is overcome by the feeling of watching real life on screen. link

youTube link

UPDATE: Interview in taz (German only)
Spiegel review (german only)

UPDATE AGAIN: .. as the Spiegel interview with Fatih Akin is now also available in english – here some excerpt and the link:

From Istanbul to New York: German director Fatih Akin, who shot to fame with his 2004 hit “Head-On,” talks about Turkish-German filmmaking, his fondness for Istanbul and how his new film, “The Edge of Heaven,” only worked when he introduced a lesbian love affair to the plot. (read on)

UPDATE: .. also the Zeit article Love and two coffins / Fatih Akin’s “The Edge of Heaven” is an optimistic requiem full of little utopias by Katja Nicodemus is available in english >>> here now.