the power of trilogies

a few years back, fatih akin, in his early thirties made the rather wonderful Head-On, which tapped into his own conflicted background for inspiration. this is what sight and sound had to say about it, back in 2005.

Head-On also shuttles between cultural codes. Having grown up in Germany with Turkish parents, the protagonists seem to feel equally (not) at home in either culture, quoting freely from both their Turkish and German cultural heritages. Yet the film presents this not as a problem of non-belonging but rather as an opportunity to construct multiple belongings. Instead of portraying the experience of exile in terms of homelessness and loss, Head-On emphasises its enabling side, what Edward Said called the "plurality of vision" it offers.

Fatih Akin has said that his film has no ambition to "represent" the Turkish minority in Germany. Instead, his protagonists are outsiders, "on a quest to find themselves." They seek to invent a new life, a new morality, and they pay a price for trying to do so. The film ends with the suggestion that for both of them the quest and the passion are ongoing. In the words of one Turkish pop song: "What would remain from the story, if there were not passion?"

At Cannes this year, his The Edge of Heaven made its debut. the second of what i am suppposing is a trilogy (``I conceived of the whole thing as a trilogy -- the Love, Death and the Devil trilogy.'') I for one, cannot wait. it won for best screenplay. and charlotte rampling handed over the prize. an added perk.




"Akin's work is so serene, contemplative and yet so complex that it bypasses any simple comparisons to recent convoluted choral works such as Crash and Babel and offers pleasing touches of Kieslowskian non-coincidences, though Akin is certainly not on the same level as the legendary Polish director of the Ten Commandments and the Three Colours Trilogy - at least, not yet," writes Boyd van Hoeij at european-films.net. "As an acting showcase, Auf der andere Seite is outstanding. Hanna Schygulla gives one of her most riveting performances in years, while the Turkish ensemble is excellent all-round."

it's good to see the AMAZING schygulla garner attention again. she herself compared the young german-turk to a young fassbinder.