Divine sadness

>>Turkish director Fatih Akin on his fascinating, melancholy new film, The Edge of Heaven

PROFOUND POTBOILER: The Edge of Heaven

by MATTHEW HAYS

For most filmgoers, the network narrative has become a crashing bore. What started as a unique storytelling device, perhaps most famously executed by Robert Altman with films like Nashville, has since been exploited by far lesser and less interesting filmmakers (Paul Haggis’s Crash, for example).

Thus Turkish-German filmmaker Fatih Akin’s latest film, The Edge of Heaven, comes as that much more of a surprise. Akin employs the same device here, showing us several characters as coincidences make the paths of their lives cross. But nothing about Heaven feels hackneyed, tired or cliché-ridden. Instead, Akin has managed to reinvigorate this screenwriting ploy, breathing new life into something I’d written off for dead.

It’s easy to find reason to praise Heaven—a superb cast, great cinematography and keen writing—but it’s a tough film to write about, given that virtually any plot point I cite will count as a spoiler. Suffice it to say that a Turkish prostitute, a retired widower, a lesbian couple caught up in a tortured relationship and a conservative German mother all collide over the German-Turkish divide. The Germany Akin depicts in his film world is cruel and often unforgiving to the Turks who have come to Europe desperately seeking a better life. It’s a glimpse into the universe of 21st-century globalization, in which culture clashes are frequent and not always pleasing.

It’s also a logical step in the evolution of Akin as a filmmaker; his 2004 feature Head On showed us the stormy relationship that developed between two suicidal Turkish Germans. That film led to huge international praise and accolades for Akin, making him a rising star in the European film milieu.

At the heart of his latest is a fascinating and profoundly sad story—The Edge of Heaven is a potboiler in which Akin meshes together many disparate elements, all seamlessly. “I had collected so many thoughts and ideas over the years,” Akin says of his inspirations. “After the success of Head On, there were so many new windows and doors open to me. I put together all my notes and ideas, and pulled together various stories I’d heard. I asked, how can I put all those elements together?”

Unforced fate

With Heaven, Akin concedes he was trying to do something very tricky: to meditate on fate and circumstance, without seeming forced or contrived. “You have to make it convincing, of course. It has to somehow be invisible and elegant. You can’t make it seem like a trick. I’m happy with the way Edge of Heaven turned out. I think I succeeded with my intuition. I think a big part of it is telling a story in which spectacular things happen in a non-spectacular way.”

Akin says much of what he learned about filmmaking came from a constant diet of screening. “I watch a lot of films, I try to watch one a day. With this film, I thought about Antonioni, Bergman, as well as the cinema of China and Iran. At the same time, I was trying to make this different than previous work. And I wanted it to be different than Head On, I didn’t want to be repeating myself either.”

German film fans will note Akin’s casting coup, with the conservative mom played by Hanna Schygulla, the actor who appeared in many of Fassbinder’s films. “She was perfect to work with,” Akin says. “It was a big lesson for me. I met her a few years ago at a film festival. Obviously, I’m a big fan of Fassbinder’s. I was so impressed with her personality. She has a real presence. I knew I wanted to film her right away. She’s so strong in this role.”

Akin also chose to make two of his central characters—one an illegal immigrant—lesbians, a choice he made mid-way through the screenwriting process. “I could have had this exotic girl finding this good man. Then I thought that it’d actually be rather boring. I thought it would be interesting to have them both be women, because it complicates things for them, and gives the relationship another dimension. For me, these things are very normal. It gives the film another power—it makes the script stronger.”

The Edge of Heaven opens
This Friday, May 2

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