When I saw Fatih Akin’s ‘ The Edge of Heaven ‘ - winner of the Best Screenplay Award at the 2007 Festival de Cannes at this year’s MAMI Film Fesitval in Mumbai, I was spellbound. Hearing that the film will be released theatrically in Mumbai, Delhi and Bangalore at PVR on 10th October makes me rejoice all the more!
After Head-On and Crossing The Bridge: The Sound Of Istanbul (2005), Akin puts his mighty filmmaking talents into a complex film that has been hailed as his best yet.
This German/ Turkish film has already won multiple international awards and has screened at various film festivals from around the world.
It’s great to see such gems regularly releasing in the major cities of India courtesy NDTV Lumiere. They have also released a bunch of amazing world cinema titles in India on DVDs. The current list includes The Orphanage – it’s quite spooky, Goodbye Children ( Louis Malle probably at his best! ), Half Moon, Crossing the Bridge, Head On ( another Fatih Akin masterpiece) and a few more.
Below are comments from Fatih Akin on The Edge of Heaven and his films in general -
Courtesy : Match Factory
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Erich Fromm’s “The Art of Loving” influenced me a lot. I’m fascinated by human relationships. Not just boy meets girl or in a sexual sense, but also between parents and children. All human relationships. I believe that all the wars in the world are the result of not using love in the way that humanity should. I think evil is the product of laziness. It’s easier to hate someone than to love them.
Shooting In Turkey
I finally started shooting on May 1, 2006. The Edge Of Heaven was shot in Germany – Bremen and Hamburg, and in Turkey – Istanbul, the Black Sea Coast and Trabzon. The shoot lasted about 10 weeks. For a filmmaker, Turkey is a great place to shoot. Shooting in Germany is much less interesting. It can be attractive, but you have to look hard or create it. The light is extraordinary in Turkey because of its geographic position. For me, shooting in Istanbul is like shooting in New York. They’re both attractive and cosmopolitan. Each city is a megalopolis. I love to shoot in cities. I’m a big city child. It’s what I know. In The Edge Of Heaven, the city of Istanbul is actually a character. Since she doesn’t speak the language, foreigner Lotte becomes lost as she confronts Istanbul. But I also wanted to break the urban image with scenes in the countryside and the coast.
In Between Two Cultures
I have this Turkish background and I have this German background. I was born in Germany, but I’m in between the two cultures. Educated in Europe, but also raised in Turkish by my parents. Turkish culture has always been a part of my life. I traveled to Turkey with my family every summer since I was a kid. Since I’m in between these two cultures, it’s natural that my films are in between, too.
Love-Hate Relationship With Turkey
I have this love-hate relationship with Turkey, a very complicated relationship. I became much more interested in Turkey after I finished school in 1995. I decided to make my first short film there, Weed in 1996. I saw another face of Turkey and I became more and more fascinated. I became more Turkish. With every meter of film I shoot in Turkey, I try to understand the country more and more. But the more I understand it, the more it makes me sad. I hate the politics, the nationalism. Look at what is happening in that country.
History repeating itself. The same mistakes again and again. I love that country, but shooting in Turkey takes a lot of energy, tears and blood.
Turkish Bureaucracy
The image of Turkish bureaucracy in The Edge Of Heaven isn’t harsh, it’s Kafkaesque. This is not criticism, it’s truth without comment. In the film, when the political activist is arrested in front of Ayten, the happy crowd applauses. The sad thing is that this happened naturally in rehearsal, the extras just automatically clapped. This really only happens when those arrested are considered to be “enemies of the state”. Fascism is alive and well in the streets of Istanbul.
Count The Turkish Flags
There are a lot of Turkish flags seen in The Edge Of Heaven. Go ahead and count them. I guess the nationalists will interpret that as a sign of love for Turkey, but I didn’t put one in. They were all already there. I didn’t change the locations. I shot them the way they were. Maybe I went too far, there are so many Turkish flags!
Intelligence Is Sexy
I think intelligence is sexy, so I made the character of Nejat a professor. And a German professor of Turkish origin breaks certain clichés which still exist in Germany. Turks today play a significant role in German culture, politics and science. They’re not just hustling in the streets. For Yeter, education is important enough for her to prostitute herself to provide one for her daughter. Nejat can relate to this desire for knowledge. I liked the irony that when Nejat goes to Istanbul he trades places with a German intellectual running a bookstore.
Education Can Save The World
Literacy, education, plays a profound role in The Edge Of Heaven. A book is a key image in the conflict between Nejat and his father. Which book to show? It was a very difficult decision for me. I didn’t want “Siddartha” or “The Hobbit” or anything too full of some parallel meaning. So I thought I would advertise my friend’s fantastic book. I chose “Die Tochter Des Schmieds” (“The Blacksmith’s Daughter”) by Selim Ozdogan. In regards to the film, the key element is about reading. Reading stands for education. And education is the only thing that can save the world.
Hannah and Tuncel
I imagined this German mother coming to Istanbul looking for her missing daughter. I had this image early on with Hanna Schygulla in mind. I had met her in Belgrade in 2004 and she put a spell on me. I was really into the idea of working with her. Some German journalists have compared my career to that of Fassbinder’s, but I don’t see it at all. I come from the streets, not the theater. Yilmaz Güney is more my background, independent against the norm. What Fassbinder was to Hanna, Güney was similar to actor Tuncel Kurtiz, who I also imagined early on to be part of The Edge Of Heaven. But my goal wasn’t to use them as icons from films by Fassbinder and Güney. It would have been vain of me to try and use them like no one else before. I didn’t want my direction to be affected like that. For me, my job is storytelling. And both Hanna and Tuncel fit the idea I had for the parents in the story.
Sampling
The challenge for me as a filmmaker is not to repeat myself. I like to surprise myself and ultimately the audience. I hope that all my films will seem different. I guess we’ll be able to judge that five films from now. When my ideas come, they all come at the same time and they come from a lot of different sources. I even recycle, like sampling in hip hop music, which I love. They use known bass lines to create something new from something old, and it’s a sort of homage at the same time. Some of the issues in The Edge Of Heaven were sampled from Crossing The Bridge. The character of the political activist Ayten was inspired by those Kurdish singers. Here in the West, we don’t have to fight for freedom of speech. But the war for justice is still going on in Turkey.
Passion Is Sexy
Fighting for something with passion is sexy. And I wanted a sexy character for The Edge Of Heaven. Ayten is very emotional. She’s street-smart and very attractive. She’s a political person. At first, actress Nurgül Yesilçay didn’t feel comfortable with the political background of the character. When she finally agreed, she went all the way. I was fascinated by how well she knew her character. I know a lot of women like Ayten and Nurgül is not one of them. Ayten is sort of a female version of me. She believes in one thing, but later she will surprise herself and change her ideas.
Am I political?
I want to change the world - am I political? My film hopes the world will change – is it political? Probably more philosophical, but I think everything is political in today’s world. In the times we live in, I think it’s impossible to separate life and politics and art. I believe in the stuff I believe in, but I might change my mind tomorrow. I try not to be dogmatic. Whatever people believe in – religion or politics – everything has limits, everything heads in one direction. I wanted to make a film about going to the other side of all that, going beyond all that. I tried to make this film with some distance, as a viewer from the outside. But it didn’t seem to be possible. Sometimes it’s not the head which directs. I guess it’s a part of me that’s much more irrational, like the heart.
Germany And Turkey
As Germans, Susanne and Lotte represent the European Union, while Ayten and Yeter represent Turkey. Everything that happens between them in The Edge Of Heaven is representative of the relationship of those systems. I had some fun with the argument between Susanne and Ayten regarding the European Union. But where I stand is not the point. I wrote this dialogue based on what I have often heard from real people around me. By the end of the film, German Susanne and Turkish Ayten both experience a profound change in how they see and feel about things. In the bookstore scene at the end where they hug, I noticed a small detail only in the edit. Not far from the women, there are two small flags, one German, the other Turkish. My friend and partner, Andreas Thiel, who passed away during the last week of the shoot, put them there. This stands for something. I guess it’s also a film about the relationship between the two countries.
Trailer of The Edge of Heaven
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