by RUPERT BOTTENBERG

Even before the opening credits of his documentary Crossing the Bridge: The Sound of Istanbul arrive, German-Turkish director Fatih Akin has managed first to give the obvious its due acknowledgement, and engage the more resonant truth underneath.

Yes, Istanbul, Turkey’s primary metropolis, is a city of contradictions. Old and new collide, as do rich and poor and, most notably, East and West—the city is bisected by the Bosphorus River, which demarcates the division between Christian Europe and Muslim Asia Minor. But what truly comes to the surface, in interviews and translated song lyrics, is the grinning ambivalence, plenty bitter but not that sweet, that Istanbul’s inhabitants feel towards their confusing, cacophonous town. As the singer of Duman, the grunge band that constitutes the doc’s musical low point, caterwauls, Istanbul “will suck your blood/It’s worth dying for.”

The subject of the doc is Istanbul’s music, and Akin’s investigation of it uses Alexander Hacke, bassist of German industrial act Einsturzende Neubauten, as his probe. Hacke’s fascination with Turkish music coalesced when he helped score Head-On, Akin’s widely noted, prize-winning drama from 2004. With laptop and microphones in tow, Hacke records and even sits in with a wide variety of Turkish talent, often in unusual locations. Akin, recognizing that the city and its sounds are his true stars, is kind enough to allow these sessions to breathe freely.

The musicians range from venerated Turkish pop stars to scruffy garage rockers, folk-music virtuosos to breakdancers, DJs and an outrageously fast and fine-tuned rapper in MC Ceza. His machinegun cadence begs further investigation, as does the needling, noodling Oriental psych-rock of Baba Zula and the Kurdish folk revivalism of Aynur. Mercan Dede, a DJ, ney player and Sufi seeker who’s lived a good spell in Montreal, also pops up.

Supplementing interviews and performances with vintage Turkish movie clips and historical photos, never to mention snatches of whirling dervishes, junkies, hipsters and rural wedding revelers, Akin creates a lively tapestry of Turkey today. However, historical, political and economic concerns are, frustratingly, given only vague and incomplete attention, leaving a lot of lingering questions. The most pressing, though, is, “Where can one score some tunes by Ceza and Baba Zula? That shit rocks.”

Crossing the Bridge opens Friday, Aug. 11

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