Gegen die Wand
Tags: dark, murder, cult, violence, atmospheric, romantic

Plot synopsis:
The movie starts off with a Turkish singing group at the edge of the water in what appears to be Istanbul. After a story telling song from the group the movie goes into a night club where a band has just finished playing. It is here where we first meet our main character Cahit Tomruk (Birol Unel). Cahit is picking up all the bottles on the floor at the club, that is his job. After Cahit is done working he goes to a local bar and gets thrown out because he starts fighting with another man after this man calls him names. The bartender knows Cahit by name and after he's done throwing him out he tells Cahit to go home. Belligerently drunk Cahit drives home and contemplates his life. After driving out of a tunnel Cahit sees a wall and decides to hit the gas and slams right into it. The next shot of Cahit is of him going to a psychologist for a check up; Cahit is in a neck brace. While sitting in the waiting room Cahit notices a beautiful girl (Sibel Kekilli) looking at him, when they call his name to go in the girl perks up. Inside Cahit and the doctor talk about his suicide attempt. Cahit ends up leaving in a bad mood and as soon as walks out of the office the girl approaches him and asks him to marry her, Cahit looks at her strange and tells her to fuck off. Later Cahit sees the girl and her family at the dining facilities; it appears that Cahit is in some sort of rehabilitation center. The girls family, especially her brother (Cem Akin) and father (Demir Gokgol), are angry at her for her attempted suicide, apparently it is not her first. Her brother warns her not to do anything stupid again because if anything happens to their father, he'll kill her. Her mother (Aysel Iscan) consoles her. Later on a walk the girl catches up with Cahit and introduces herself as Sibel. Sibel gets Cahit to escape from the center and go to a nearby bar. At the bar Sibel and Cahit talk about why one another were at the center, Sibel tells Cahit of how her brother once broke her nose when he caught her holding a boys hand. Sibel asks Cahit to marry her again and he tells her she's fucked up in the head. Sibel gets angry and breaks a wine bottle and cuts herself across the arm, Cahit gets up and immediately ties something around her arm and takes her out of the bar with him. They end up catching a bus to the hospital, on the ride they discuss why Sibel wants to get married. Sibel wants to get married because it is the only way to escape her family and they will only let her marry a Turkish man. She tells Cahit that their "marriage" will be more like a roommate relationship; she'll cover any and every expense. Cahit is fighting it the whole time but you can see him start to contemplate it. The bus driver hearing of their plan pulls over and kicks both of them out. Next the same Turkish band and scene from the beginning of the movie comes back and sings another song. After, Cahit is shown by himself in the dump that is his apartment. Next Cahit is shown talking to his best friend Guven (Guven Kirac) about the whole marriage idea. Guven thinks it is the worst idea ever and warns Cahit not to do it. Cahit is then shown clean shaven and dressed up in his best suit and Guven is pretending to be his uncle when they go meet with Sibel's family. While meeting with Sibel's family Cahit is grilled by both Yilmaz (the brother) and Yunus (the father). Guven does his best to deflect their aggressive behavior. In the kitchen Sibel and her mother talk about Cahit, Sibel's mother has a little trouble with their age difference and Cahit's demeanor. Sibel's father finally gives his blessing. Soon after the wedding is underway. Sibel is shown picking up her cousin, Selma(Meltum Cumbul), from the airport. She will be the maid of honor. Cahit and Sibel go to city hall with Guven and Selma as their witnesses and get married. While signing the license it is discovered that Cahit is a widower, much to Sibel's surprise. They are shown arguing about it as they leave city hall. Next they arrive in a hall and have a big Turkish wedding reception. When they get back to Cahit's apartment and his taking her across the threshold, Sibel's asks Cahit what his wife's name was. This infuriates Cahit because he told her not to bring it up again and he throws Sibel out and leaves her on the steps. After a while Sibel gets up and goes to the bar that's around the corner, she ends up talking the barkeeper into taking her home for the night and "steal the bride." The next day when walking back to Cahit's place she contemplates leaving with her cousin to Istanbul but ultimately decides to stay with Cahit. She turns his apartment into a livable place. Next Cahit is shown at a bar and starts talking to his friend Maren (Catrin Striebeck) and ends up sleeping with her. After the sex he asks Maren if she can give a job to his roommate Sibel in her hair salon. Sibel is hired by Maren as a hair stylist. One night Sibel talks Cahit into taking her to a club. At the club Sibel meets a guy and goes home with him, she even tells Cahit she's going go get laid and to not wait up for her. Cahit goes home bitter, and gets drunk and passes out. In the morning he goes to her room and lays on her bed and smells her pillow, it seems that Cahit is starting to like Sibel. The next scene is more of the Turkish band. Next it shows Sibel and Cahit go to Sibel's cousin's house(not Selma's) to hang out with her cousins and brother. The women sit around and gossip while the men play some sort of dominoes. During the domino game some cousins get heated with Cahit because of the things he says, mostly about how they should be sleeping with their own wives instead of going out and finding whores. Sibel and Cahit leave and Yilmaz (Sibel's brother) comes out and calls Cahit. Yilmaz confronts Cahit on not being the manager at the club but the bottle picker upper. Yilmaz asks why he lied and Cahit replies that he had to in order to be able to marry Sibel, and he only lied because he really loves her. After the cousins house Sibel and Cahit go to a local bar where Cahit gets so drunk he passes out and Sibel leaves with another man. Maren comes and takes Cahit home with her and they have sex. The next night Sibel prepares a nice home cooked meal for Cahit. During dinner Sibel talks of how her mother has been hassling her about grandchildren, Cahit tells Sibel they should make her mother some(half jokingly). Sibel takes it as a joke and tells Cahit she'll just tell her mother he is impotent plus it will be a good reason for a divorce. Cahit gets mad and they both go their separate ways for the night. Later that night Cahit goes to the club Sibel said she was going to be at. Cahit has a little trouble with the bouncer who refuses to let him in until Sibel comes out and brings Cahit in. In the club a group of guys beat up Cahit when he tries to stop one of them from hitting on Sibel. Sibel cleans up Cahit outside of the club and they go home. At home the two start getting intimate, but right before they begin to have sex Sibel stops Cahit because if they do have sex the marriage will have been consummated, and they really will be man and wife. The next day at the work Cahit tells Guven that he really is in love, this upsets Guven. Cahit even gets up on stage and dances with the band he's so happy. At Sibel's work she and Maren talk about Cahit's first wife, Katherine. It gets out that Maren and Cahit have sex, this really upsets Sibel and she storms out. Sibel goes to a fair by herself and rides some rides, while walking she buys a giant cookie that says "I love you" on it; she takes it home and places it on Cahit's pillow. At the same time Cahit is at a bar getting smack talked by Nico(Stefan Gebelhoff), one of Sibel's former lovers who just found out she was married and is upset about it. Cahit just sits there and takes it in silence until finally he turns around and just cracks Nico with a glass ashtray, it kills Nico. Right as Cahit hovers over Nico to check if he is alive, Sibel walks in. Sibel then runs home and cuts herself length ways down her arm. The next day it is in the papers that Cahit killed Nico because his wife had slept with him, it also comes out that Nico wasnt the only one. Sibel's father sees the paper and begins to burn all of Sibel's pictures, he disowns her. When Sibel walks out of the hospital her brother is waiting for her outside, she sees him and begins to run away. She eventually runs all the way to Guven's house and hides out there for a while. Next Sibel visits Cahit in jail and promises to wait for him. Next scene the band in Istanbul sings another song. Next Sibel is shown on a flight to Istanbul, now with much shorter hair. Selma gets her a job as a cleaning lady at the hotel she manages. Sibel hates it, waking up early, cleaning, and the same routine over and over. One night Sibel decides to diverge from her usual walk home and goes to a bar. She asks the bartender where she can get some drugs, he asks what kind and she says whatever. The bartender takes Sibel home and gives her opium. He talks her into moving in with him. She tells Selma about her moving and Selma tries to stop her. Sibel yells at Selma and accuses Selma of trying to make her like her, and says the reason her husband left is because she is working all the time, Selma slaps Sibel for saying such. Sibel moves in with the bartender and works at the bar and starts to party like crazy. One night she party's so hard that she passes out on the bar floor, after everyone has left the bar the bartender rapes an unconscious Sibel. A little later he kicks her out and on her way home she gets beat up by some guys who harassed her. She continues to keep getting up after each beating and talking back until finally one of the guys stabs her and they all run away and leave her for dead. Soon after a taxi pulls up and sees Sibel lying there, he picks her up and presumably takes her to the hospital. Next Band and Scene again, except now it is noticeable that time is passing in the scene. In the beginning it looked like morning while now it shows dusk. After that Cahit is shown to get out of jail, Guven picks him up. Cahit tells Guven he plans to go to Istanbul to be with Sibel. Guven tries to talk him out of it; to forget her. Cahit says she is the only reason he is still alive. Guven gives him a bunch of money he has saved up so Cahit can go to Istanbul. Cahit goes to Istanbul to Selma's hotel, which it looks like she now owns. Selma tells Cahit that Sibel has a boyfriend and a child and she's happy so to leave her alone. Cahit waits at a little hotel and finally one day Sibel calls him, she arranges to come to his hotel and see him. She spends a couple days with him and they consummate the marriage, again and again... and again. They plan to go to Mersin, the city of Cahit's birth. Cahit tells Sibel he has bought her and her daughter tickets to go, she agrees. The day comes and Sibel stands up Cahit. She is shown at her home with her baby and boyfriend. Cahit decides to get on the bus and go alone. The movie ends with the group singing a song against the Istanbul scene.

Review: Cahit Tomruk (the sublimely attitudinizing Birol Ünel) is a purposeless rock 'n' roll loving boozer with a dead-end job collecting bottles at a club, and Sibel Güner (the wiry, intense Sibel Kikulli) is a young woman with conservative Turkish parents who wants to escape family pressures.Both are total drama queens and both are German-born Turks.
"Head On (Gegen die Wand)" is a completely original love story and shames conventional Hollywood romantic comedies with its fresh take on love and loss as rich as Rhett and Scarlett.The closest I can think of a dysfunctional couple meeting so oddly cute and playing out an unusual relationship is in Christopher Fry's "The Lady's Not for Burning" which shares self-destructive lovers.
The German literal title of "Against the Wall" is more resonant of how they feel, but the American distributors probably thought that had too much political implication.The completely self-involved he and she here are innately off-kilter because writer/director Faith Akin sets them within a diverse Turkish immigrant community of Germany, so that their personalities are circumscribed by cultural expectations and restrictions, she chafing against binds on women and he lost in the nihilistic punk rock underground.The rocky journey of how they find their own individuality within their sexual and emotional needs and ethnic identity and what each means to the other is an unpredictable thrill ride as each unexpected action leads to tears, laughter, poignancy and regret of bad timing.
Evidently, deleted scenes that are available on the European DVD help to expand on the hints as to what her closing motivations are.Dependant on the English subtitles, I'm sure I lost some significances as I wasn't sure when characters were speaking Turkish or German, let alone able to discern their fluency in either, with the added fillip of recognition of globalization with a sudden concluding discussion in Istanbul in English of their future.The chapter introductions by an ethnic band playing a traditional sad love song adds to the timeliness of the tale that is reminiscent of old folk ballads of tragic love stories.
In St. Pauli, Hamburg, the alcoholic, drugged and hopeless German with Turkish roots Cahit Tomruk (Birol Ünen) lives like a pig in a small dirty apartment and survives collecting empty bottles in the night-club "Der Fabrik".
Cahit accepts, but while living with Sibel, he falls in love for her, until a tragedy happens.I saw "Gegen die Wand" yesterday and I am still very impressive with this powerful German movie.
In supporting roles there is Güven Kirac, who is one of my favorite actors in Turkish cinema and Meltem Cumbul who provides good acting.By the way despite of all the tragedy there is also ethnic humor in this film which goes hand-in-hand with the story.
Some people think this movie is about a culture immigrants (German, Turkish) But that is not the emphasis, the emphasis is about how low one can go, where does one hit the bottom, and a love intertwined in such a spiral.
In Turkey, we have no chance to get that approach he has, from our local directors because of legal, social and market dominated factors in local Turkish cinema.Besides movie tells a love story happened in an environment between, behind, among and surrounded by the WALLs. Sibel marries with an alienated looser man Cahit to break down the WALLs. But she forgot to plan about love.
Love damages both of their lives in an unfortunate realistic way.As a result, Gegen die Wand - Head-on - Duvara Karþý is a must see SINCERE movie by a Turkish director from German cinema..
She is hemmed in by traditional Turkish mores and we are shown how wives end up in that culture--honored in gesture, completely devalued in practice.Unel in his moody majestic splendor is reminiscent of the great Klaus Kinski in Aguirre, Wrath of God. We watch him cop out over and over from facing anything like commitment to life or people.
But his relationship with Sibel, born in nihilism and total scorn for convention, prods to life whatever remaining feelings he still possesses.What I love about this film is that it has real solid characters who are people that you care a lot about; it has education about the Turkish community in Germany and by implication about Muslims in Europe; it always shows and does not tell; it has wit and provocation and is multidimensional and makes you realize there are some things worth fighting for.My friend commented after seeing it that a quick comparison of this film with most Hollywood product shows just what pap we are accepting from LA.
'Gegen die Wand' in German, 'Duvara karsi' in Turkish, or 'HEAD-ON' in English is an explosive drama written and directed by Faith Akin, a movie that may be tough to watch, but a movie that has enormous impact.
While other films have successfully addressed the particular problems that the immigrant Turkish community in Germany face, few have come as close to examining all sides of the on-going issues of displacement and the effects of familial dispersal in the face of a new culture.Cahit (Birol Ünel) is a thirty-something lost soul, drinking and snorting himself into oblivion over the loss of his beloved wife.
He lives in a slum, spends all his time in sleazy bars getting beaten up for inappropriate behavior until one night he drunkenly drives into a wall (?suicidal?) and ends up in a hospital where he 'meets' Sibel (Sibel Kekilli), a young woman who has again attempted suicide as an escape from her strict family's prevention of her having a life.
Once alone, Cahit is confronted with the reality that Sibel is the only path to salvation for his tragic life and the story proceeds - or rather speed drives - its way to a heartrending finish.The characters in the film are generally unlikable sorts, especially Cahit, but each actor does so well allowing us to observe the dreary world that faces immigrants in a fractured society that we end up having an amazing amount of compassion for their character creations.
The actors turned in powerful performances and I find myself, the day after I saw the film, still thinking about the plot but mostly remembering the expressions on the actors' faces.The movie did seem a little too long, but in trying to think of scenes to cut, I realized that nothing in particular felt superfluous or irrelevant to the storyline or character development.Finally, I didn't like the end!
I don't think anyone shall have a single bad thing to say about this movie, that would be plainly ridiculous.A love story, a profound depiction of social issues regarding the "German Turks", a virtual cultural journey.
The title actually better translated as "Against the wall" and, seems to me, expresses feelings of the director Faith Akin regarding fate of his Turkish compatriots transplanted from Turkey to Germany, very much dissimilar countries divided by culture, traditions and way of life.
Hopefully, the "Head On" will chip off a piece of the wall that isolates main characters and permit better their social integration into German-Turkish-Human society.Faith Akin produced credible and potent work of art which will endure.
An alcoholic, self-destructive Turk living in Germany agrees to marry young, borderline crazy, free spirited Turkish girl looking to get away from her grasping, tradition bound family.
I don't know any Turkish people and was curious about this aspect in the film.The two leading actors were excellent and you could really sympathise with them at times.The rape scene was unexpected but tastefully shot and you really were quite horrified with Sibels treatment at the hands of these men..
Director shows perfectly the German-Turk un-cultured / mix cultured persons life style and what 3rd generation Turkish youth looks like in Germany.
And the city is so proudly represented here - the wonderful seedy world of the bars and clubs and all-night Turkish food joints of Altona and St. Pauli, the poetry of crushed beer cans.Watching this film is like listening to a great Tom Waits album...it has all the gleeful lewd humor and bitter tears and truth.And yes, Birol Unel's performance is as moving as acting gets.There is no way to overstate how good this film is..
He earns his living picking up post-concert beer bottles in a Hamburg club.Sibel Güner (Sibel Kekilli) is a twenty-one year old high school dropout whose attitude toward life is best summed up by the Cyndi Lauper hit, "Girls Just Want to Have Fun." Never mind that Sibel tries to kill herself; what she wants is "to live." Both Cahit and Sibel are Germans of Turkish descent who meet in the psych ward after separate failed suicide attempts.
It was not like anything else I could call a real love story.Cahit (Birol Ünel)and Sibel (Sibel Kekilli), both in an institution for attempting suicide.
I starts out in a great pace and continues to hold this pace throughout the rest of the movie until the end, where it slows down  I bit much to down after my opinion.The story is about two persons Sibel and Cahit.
The setting of this story is a city in Germany, where Turkish people make almost the half of the population.Gegen die Wand is not the best movie I've seen, but it's a definite must see, even though I would agree the picture and sound quality is not perfect.
In a way made for each other and we explore their journey.In St. Pauli, Hamburg, the alcoholic, drugged and hopeless German with Turkish roots Cahit Tomruk (Birol Ünen) lives like a pig in a small dirty apartment and survives collecting empty bottles in the night-club "Der Fabrik".
Cahit accepts, but while living with Sibel, he falls in love for her until something unforeseen happens.The movie is based on Turkish immigrants in Germany with their rather orthodox cultural background colliding with the liberal German society.
There is so much passion in this movie, probably because the director, a German-Turkish himself, understands and loves his characters through the scripts's words and the multiple close-ups.
Writer/director Faith Akin does not provide us with easy reference points for how to deal with these characters, and it is that very complexity and ambiguity that makes their story fascinating.Birol Unel is excellent as Cahit, the man who has hit such a low place at the beginning of the film that anything is bound to look like up from there.
It's European movie-making at its very best.But "Gegen die wand" is so much more than just a 'love-story'.
Especially Sibel Kekilli is a real young new discovery.The movie also shows some controversial and uneasy subjects, mainly regarding Turkish immigrants who are living in Europe.
While notable for it's naturalistic milieu depictions, fine cinematography by Swiss cinematographer Rainer Klausmann and production design by production designer Tamo Kunz, this character-driven and narrative-driven story about cultural clash, grief, interpersonal relations, identity and love, depicts two intertwining and internal studies of character and contains a great score by German composer Alexander Hache and American musician Maceo Parker.This valiant, heartfelt and afflicting drama from the early 2000s which is set in Turkey and Germany and where a marriage creates a life-altering human connection, is impelled and reinforced by it's cogent narrative structure, substantial character development, efficient continuity, use of music which emphasizes its poignant atmosphere and the unflinching and expressive acting performances by German actor of Turkish descent Birol Ünel and German actress of Turkish descent Sibel Kekilli in her debut feature film role.
A very exciting and touching movie concerning how people are working on creating a life free from the ties of ritual culture.But they find it very hard to get loose, and must accept that there are rules in the society one must follow to have a fair life.The idealistic belief in absolute freedom without any network is not realistic, even great and romantic life can't survive the conditions of material life.The plot goes about a young women of Turkish descent who wants to get out of the grip of her family's traditions so that she can live her life her way and make experiments with sexual experiences without interfering from the family.For the purpose she find a man of of Turkish descent and persuade him to marry her so she can get away from the demands of her family.The couple make a deal - but it doesn't't last for several reasons.See it its worth while.HC Denmark.
However, for the discerning viewers it wasn't difficult to notice the resemblances of the cinematography techniques between   the Argentine-born French director Gaspar Noé's in his shocking and controversial movie `Irreversible' and Fatih Akýn's `Head On', particularly by his imitation of Noé's flashing stroboscopic lights effects, violent and speeding camera movements, ear-piercing, screeching sound effects and the notorious  scene in his movie.Sibel Kekilli, the leading actress, who has contributed to the publicity of the movie by her recently revealed porn star history as well as casted a shadow over the movies overall success of winning the Berlin International Film Festival's Golden Bear Trophy.Birol Unel who played Cahit, a loser, a drunkard, a doper living in a two-bit life, riding on the fast lane has reminded me of the  edgy, convincing and charismatic performances of  the great actor Willem Dafoe and for my opinion Unel was the true savior with his powerful acting performance.There were also some minor holes in the plot, like unrealistic portrayal of the Sibel's family's oppression and fundamentalism to justify her despair, especially the mother figure shakes the integrity of the plot.Head On's mesmerizing scores, ranging from the punk-rock, jazz and the new age to the eastern vocal ethnic elegies and the oriental tunes of the Turkish traditional music, from such artists like the British Depeche Mode with their many German and Turkish counterparts, not only underlined the culture clash between the East and the West, but made this movie a true feast for our ears.Needless to say, despite of its flaws, this movie still shines as a masterpiece of Turkish Cinema with its unique universal storytelling of Fatih Akin, who has all the inventories of the prominent directors of the Western Cinema,  but undoubtedly  this movie proved us that he had even more..
But straitlaced families are just part of the problem; Cahit and Sibel must also counterbalance ancestral roots with their new life in a western democracy.The film starts with a very surreal opening with a band performing a song about unrequited love on the beach in a foreign land.
In the beginning of the movie, Cahit is a wreck and although it would be simplistic to say that love "saves" him, it is certain that the collision of his life with Sibel's is cataclysmic.the movie's real power lies with the fact that the characters are truly multidimensional and complex, they experience conflicting emotions and desires and ultimately it is their incapacity to understand what is happening to them which leads to their downfall.
They are so used to suffering and struggling and to using people and being used that when suddenly they fall in love, they can't even recognise what is happening to them until it is too late.I don't think you need to be Turkish, or an immigrant, to feel deep empathy with Sibel and Cahit.
Gegen die Wand (2004) answers,corresponds in the highest degree to my expectations from a movie.This is how art,stripped of ballast and of concessions,can look.It is encouraging that movies so accomplished are made nowadays.Gegen die Wand (2004) has a chorus that frames the action's peaks.What is the director's rapport with the Turkish music that he uses?If it is not a naive use,it is not an ironical one,either.I would say that it is an affectionate rapport,a recourse to a simple,cherished and effective artistic shape;I think this is how Faith Akin uses the Turkish folk music:as a shape of the heart,a shape refined by time;so,his approach is cultured and affectionate and on a highly refined level.It is a great creator's approach of the great culture that he belongs to.Cahit is a Turkish guy and German citizen that earns his living by picking garbage;he was born in Turkey,but works in Germany,as a German citizen,and is not very interested in his Turkish compatriots,on the contrary,he resents all the ethnic stuff;as he tries to end his life,Cahit meets in the clinic a beautiful and very young Turkish girl that asks his hand.What follows is one of the most thrilling love stories.Faith Akin seizes the richness and the infinity of the life's poetry.He reaches the level of a perennial realism and of an astounding concreteness,within the parameters of a highly differentiated style.The photography is of a lavish beauty.There are sex and violence.Birol Ünel is one of the most interesting actors of today.He has the intelligence and charm and that note of cool that Rourke had in the '80s;his range as an actor is very wide,and he constantly offers an intensity of acting seldom seen in the movies.This joy of acting,this keen intelligence,this incisive force are what Birol Ünel brings in Faith Akin's film.There are few movies that I swallow with such an appetite.Perennial realism,the huge fascination of life,exceptional actors (Birol Ünel, Sibel Kekilli,Catrin Striebeck,Meltem Cumbul).The content is so abundant and overwhelming.A first-class example of artistic dignity and integrity..
Especially the two magnificent leads, Birol Ünel and newcomer Sibel Kekilli, shine in the portrayal of a slowly developing romance between a fortysomething alcoholic and a free-spirited 20-year-old woman who engage in a fake marriage in order to help her escape from her Turkish family and live a `German' life (Meaning: Being able to go out whenever she wants, having sex with different men, doing drugs,.).
A Turkish girl, Sibel wants to live like German people want and her family doesn't accept such kind of a life.
Meltem Cumbullu and Birol Unel fits in with their roles perfectly but I didn't say same things about Sibel's family.Lastly, One more interesting Faith Akin film that starts in Germany and finishes in Turkey...23 wins & 11 nominations already shows the success of it.