Pretty Good

Just what I expected

Highly Overrated But Still Good

An old-fashioned movie made with new-fashioned finesse.

chain of tales. circle of emotions. subtle acting. beautiful images. key of different rooms of world. a kind of poem. picture of fights out of rules. search of sense. definition of beauty shadows. map of roots. an extraordinary director and his magnificent cast. story of truth and his bones, ways and sentences, pledge about universal language of love need, game of duty and sacrifice price, nostalgic description of people, countries, lost and necessaries meetings, it is not just a impressive movie but occasion to self recognition far from usual definitions or large - comfortable hypocrisy. a film between culture, among masks. illustration of old memento mori as seed of silent heavy joy. a search. few answers. and flowers of new questions. a subtle performance of Hanna Schygulla. touching science of Baki Davrak to create the universe of Nejat. a profound lesson as end. a travel. inside essence of strange peace.

German screenwriter, producer and director F Akin's fifth feature film which he wrote and co-produced with Andreas Thiel, Jeanette Würl and Klaus Maeck, is the second part of a planned trilogy called "Love, death and the devil" which was preceded by "Head-On" (2004). It premiered In competition at the sixtieth Cannes Film Festival in 2007 and is a Germany-Italy-Turkey co-production which was shot on location in Hamburg and Bremen in Germany, in Taksim and Kadiköy in Istanbul and at the Black Sea in Trabzon in Turkey. It tells the story about Ali Aksu, a widowed and retired Turkish immigrant who lives in Bremen. One day Ali meets a Turkish prostitute named Yeter whom he grows affectionate about. Ali is looking for a partner and offers Yeter to pay her the same amount that she earns working at the brothel if she comes to live with him. Yeter agrees and moves in with Ali, but after having met his German son, a professor who lives in Hamburg, Yeter gets into an argument with Ali that leads to him being sent to jail and his son traveling to Istanbul in order to find Yeter's 27-year-old daughter Ayten whom he thinks is a student. Acutely and engagingly directed by filmmaker F Akin, this humane and compassionately narrated fictional tale which is set in Germany and Turkey during the early 21st century, draws an incisive portrayal of a young Turkish woman who is searching for her mother, the relationship between a German professor and his father and the relationship between a German student and her mother. While notable for it's naturalistic milieu depictions, the fine production design by art director Sirma Bradley and production designer Tamo Kunz, cinematography by Swiss cinematographer Rainer Klausmann and editing by English-born film editor Andrew Bird, this humorous, tragic and romantic story depicts several studies of character and examines themes like family relations, cultural clash, forgiveness, death and love. This universal, character-driven and finely tuned European film which has the lives of six characters intertwining, contains a fine score by German DJ Shantel and is impelled and reinforced by it's fragmented narrative structure and the empathic and involving acting performances by Turkish actor, playwright and producer Tuncel Kurtiz, Turkish-German actor Baki Davrak, Turkish stage and film actress Nurgül Yesilcay, Turkish-born German actress Nursel Köse and German actress and singer Hanna Schygulla. A multifaceted and invariably moving drama which gained, among numerous other awards, the award for Best Screenplay at the sixtieth Cannes Film Festival in 2007, the European Film Award for European Screenwriter at the 20th European Film Awards in 2007 and the NSFC Award for Best Supporting actress Hanna Schygulla at the 43rd National Society of Film Critics Awards in 2009.

An elderly Turkish man, Ali, living in Germany hires a prostitute, Yeter, to take care of him. After suffering a heart attack, he learns that the woman sends things to her grown daughter in Turkey. He later hits her and she dies from head trauma and Ali is sent to prison. Ali's son, Nejat travels to Turkey in order to locate Yeter's daughter to help her out financially because he feels responsible in some way for her mothers death. Ali is released from prison and is deported to Turkey where he meets Nejat's mother and they go over Nejat's diary and he recalls the final days of Nejat's days with her mother. The edge of heaven is biblical in scope and won a top prize at the Cannes film festival in 2007. The jury was correct as I will never forget the humanity of writer/ director Faith Akin's masterpiece.

This is such a complex movie with very complex characters. It also involves the tests of cultural differences. In the little traveling I've done, I always find myself looking over my shoulder, not because of the regular kinds of danger, but those cultural things of which I am ignorant. This has to do with subtle differences in government and the oppression of citizens. It has to do with the reaction toward those who defy authority. Also, Islam plays a large part in all of this. Ultimately, however, this is about a realistic portrayal of some incredibly interesting people, not because of what they have done, but how they are portrayed and react. I guess that makes it stellar acting. All the characters move around in a broad circle, motivated by their pain. There is the constant tug of how one is able to maintain a political agenda when one is faced with human tragedy. How much of life is about making a point. I kept waiting for all the pieces to be put together. They never are; but it is no matter. It's an excellent film.