The Edge Of Heaven (2008) Movie Information:

The Edge Of Heaven (2008) Directed by: Fatih Akin The Edge Of Heaven (2008) Written by: Fatih Akin The Edge Of Heaven (2008) Cast: Baki Davrak, Nurgül Yesilçay, Patrycia Ziolkowska, Hanna Schygulla, Nursel Köse, Tuncel Kurtiz, Lars Rudolph, Erkan Cam, Iorgay Tanulku, Elcim Erdgiu, Nurten Gumer, Asuman Altimay

The Edge Of Heaven (2008) U.S. Distributor: Strand Releasing The Edge Of Heaven (2008) U.K. Distributor: Artificial Eye

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The Edge Of Heaven (2008) Synopsis:

Ali (Kurtiz) is a feisty Turk living near his university professor son Nejat (Davrak) in Bremen. In his loneliness, Ali hires an outrageous Turkish hooker, Yeter (Köse), to live with him. When Yeter dies suddenly, Nejat heads to Istanbul to find her long-lost daughter Ayten (Yesilçay), then decides to stay there. Meanwhile, the rabble-rousing Ayten has fled Turkey and is looking for her mother in Bremen. She meets Lotte (Ziolkowska), a bright student who falls for her, then follows her to Istanbul when she's deported. When Lotte dies suddenly, her mother (Schygulla) goes to Istanbul to get some answers.

The Edge Of Heaven (2008) Movie Review:

With this elegantly assembled drama, Akin emerges as one of the finest filmmakers working today. The considerable storytelling skills of his film Head-on (2004) flower into something truly magical.

Ali (Kurtiz) is a feisty Turk living near his university professor son Nejat (Davrak) in Bremen. In his loneliness, Ali hires an outrageous Turkish hooker, Yeter (Köse), to live with him. When Yeter dies suddenly, Nejat heads to Istanbul to find her long-lost daughter Ayten (Yesilçay), then decides to stay there. Meanwhile, the rabble-rousing Ayten has fled Turkey and is looking for her mother in Bremen. She meets Lotte (Ziolkowska), a bright student who falls for her, then follows her to Istanbul when she's deported. When Lotte dies suddenly, her mother (Schygulla) goes to Istanbul to get some answers.

Akin announces both of the fatalities in chapter titles long before they happen, lending a sense of imminent doom that immediately grabs hold. From here he deepens and widens the story, quietly pulling us into the lives of the various characters as their paths cross and twist together. By the end, we are completely bound up with them in their journeys toward an intimate kind of redemption.

The actors expertly play these six intriguing people through a range of associations and missed connections that are funny and romantic, earthy and sad. At the centre is the duality of cultures, as the film slides between Germany and Turkey with remarkable ease, and dialog shifts from German to Turkish to English. The various stories parallel and overlap each other tellingly, intertwining and pulling apart as the characters have no idea exactly how closely connected they all are.

Akin's visual style is both moody and fluid, catching the emotional layers of each scene without sentimentalising anything. The darker story threads are quietly haunting, and as it flows together the film is punctuated by scenes of aching beauty, wrenching sadness and surprising grace. Akin shows remarkable patience in setting up scenes and letting them play out properly, which gives maximum impact because it makes joy and tragedy feel like parts of everyday life--both tearing us apart and bringing us together. This is simply exquisite filmmaking.

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The Edge Of Heaven (2008) review written by: Rich Cline