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Your Gateway to Music and More from a Christian Perspective Slow down as you approach the gate, and have your change ready....
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Since 1996 |
Your Gateway to Music and More from a Christian Perspective Slow down as you approach the gate, and have your change ready....
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The Edge of Heaven Stars: Nurgul Yesilcay, Baki Davrak, Hanna Schygulla, Tuncel Kurtizare, Nursel Kose and Patrycia Ziolkowska Director/Scriptwriter: Fatih Akin Strand Releasing Rating: unrated but could be R for sexuality, violence and language Running Length: 110 minutes English, Turkish and German languages with subtitles The Edge of Heaven is aptly named. If you think of heaven as being a warm, circular place, here is a variation. People find solutions to their problems, but they aren’t the solutions they want and there certainly is an edge to that. Director/writer Fatih Akin (“Head-On”) gives us three stories that are interwoven from unlikely subjects. The film is centered in Turkey and Germany. Three stories are going on here. We begin with a young man (Baki Davrak) living with his churlish father (Tuncel Kurtizare) in Germany. The mother has died and the old man goes to a Hungarian prostitute (Nursel Kose) who then moves in with father and son. The son objects, but gradually sees that she actually cares for the old man. She is supporting her daughter in Turkey who is in college. The prostitute accidentally dies and the son goes to Turkey to find the daughter. Here is story two, as we switch to the daughter (Nurgul Yesilcay), a student radical, and her escapades from the university to Germany, a lesbian affair with Patrycia Ziolkowska with a disapproving mother (Hanna Schygulla), jail time for student activism and back to Turkey. In the meantime, Baki is now living in Turkey, still trying to find the daughter, but missing her and other people who could help him. Remember Gwyneth Paltrow in “Sliding Doors?” This is similar when you see Baki riding on a train in the opposite direction from where Nurgul is headed. You want to shout, “Look over there,” but there isn’t enough time. The Edge of Heaven has plot twists and turns. People are not what you think they would be. A quiet son with resilience, a father who can’t express grief, a prostitute who loves her daughter, a daughter who wants political freedom, a girl who wants an alternate life style and another mother who can’t let go. All this in the unrest that plagues Turkey and other countries in Europe and the Middle East. There are many forms of prejudice from alternate love to the color of your skin or your religious preference. The Edge of Heaven dips its foot in this stream several times and comes out shining. No matter what happens, hope is somewhere nearby. Copyright 2008 Marie Asner
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