Lyrical Edge of Heaven Soars

As of June 6, 2008, writer and director Fatih Akin’s (Head-On) award-winning The Edge of Heaven is the best film I have seen so far this year. Dramatically moving, emotionally complex, lyrically mesmerizing and beautifully profound, this is the type of magnificent cinematic experience every film critic eagerly awaits. It is the type of inspiring human adventure the likes of which we very seldom get to see anymore, the pure filmmaking poetry on display enough to make even the most hardened and cynical cinephile weep in deliriously intoxicated pleasure.

Baki Davrak and Nursel Kose in Strand Releasing's The Edge of Heaven

The film is told in three parts. The first revolves around lonely widower Ali (Tuncel Turkiz) and his relationship with immigrant prostitute Yeter (Nursel Kose) and how the events unfolding after he asks her to marry him effect his Berlin university professor son Nejat (Baki Davrak). The second involves the woman’s militant daughter Ayten (Nurgul Yesilçay) as she flees Turkey for Germany and makes friends with a beautiful student named Lotte (Patrycia Ziolkowska), the youngster's mother Susanne (Hanna Schygulla) worried about the pair’s slowly blossoming relationship.

Both these tales collide back inside Istanbul as both Nejat and Susanne meet unexpectedly to sort out the events which have blindsided their respective lives. It is here all the pieces finally come together, truths are brought to the surface, forgiveness is pondered, promises are kept and resolutions for a better life are proclaimed.

I loved this movie. After my viewing at the Seattle International Film Festival was over I discovered myself sitting in rapt teary-eyed attention as the credits slowly rolled by. The final image is such a potently powerful metaphor about the nature of humanity, about the meaning of family, about the enduring mystery of exactly what encompasses forgiveness (and, ultimately, what the giving of it really means), that a person almost can’t help but cry.

The acting is universally stellar. For me, the most notable performances are by Ziolkowska and by Davrak, although both Yesilçay and Schygulla have scenes so emotionally wrenching I’m sure I’ll be talking about them for the rest of this year. But it is those first two who really took my breath away, each of them finding depths and layers inside their respective characters’ personas I wasn’t expecting. This is astonishing, complicated, multifaceted work by the both of them, each having moments and scenes so good I almost didn’t want them to end.

But the big deal here is Akin’s magnificent script. Winner of the 2007 Cannes Film Festival award for Best Screenplay, there is a poetry to the writing that’s truly outstanding. The film bobs and weaves to its own intricately syncopated rhythms, cultures, ethnicities, genders, sexualities, hopes, dreams and desires, all of it colliding in one magnificent ethnic melting pot stew so tasty it would earn a perfect grade in the latest Zagat Guide.

I know I said this already in my SIFF Blog a little less than a week ago, but this is a movie of strength, power and heartbreaking originality with characters so rich and genuine I felt like I almost new them. More, the film richly examines how easy it is to hate but how difficult it is to love and why sometimes doing the former is an escape from having to engage in the later. 

So far this year I’ve seen two features teetering on the edge of brilliance, the excruciatingly moving Romanian abortion drama 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days and the spellbinding illegal immigrant saga The Visitor. Without question, Edge of Heaven joins them in that elite 2008 company. This isn’t just a movie to watch, it’s also one to cherish.

Film Rating: êêêê  (out of 4)

Additional Links:

-  2008 SIFF Blog by Sara Michelle Fetters
-  2008 Seattle International Film Festival Home Page
-  The Edge of Heaven Theatrical Trailer