Head-On 9781838713720, 9781844576722

Citation preview

6

BFI FILM CLASSICS

Acknowledgments Year after year my students at Royal Holloway have nominated Head-On as their favourite film on a course on which they also study established classics alongside the latest Hollywood blockbuster. Their genuine enthusiasm for this unconventional film has made teaching Head-On an extremely rewarding experience and has strengthened my resolve to write this book. My warm thanks go to Ralph Schwingel at Wi.iste Film for sharing some wonderfully entertaining memories about the making of Head-On with me and to Meike Matthies, also at Wi.iste Film, for providing film stills and facts and figures relating to the production. Karen Rudolph at Boxfish Films and Eve Gabereau at Soda Pictures have also been tremendously helpful in answering numerous questions about the distribution and marketing of Head-On. I am indebted to Martin Stokes for generously sharing his expertise in arabesk and other musical traditions in Turkey with me. At BFI Publishing, I should like to thank Jenni Burnell for commissioning this volume and Jenna Steventon and Lucinda Knight for seeing this project through to its completion with tremendous dedication. I am immensely grateful to Sophia Contento for turning the typescript into such a beautiful, richly illustrated book. My heartfelt thanks go to Stella Bruzzi for generously giving of her time and for her constructive feedback on an earlier draft of the manuscript. Her insightful comments have inspired me and brought some of the arguments into focus. And finally, a huge thank you to my husband, Chris, and my daughters, Zoe and Hannah, for listening to my thoughts in progress and, thereby, allowing them to come to fruition.

HEAD-ON

Introduction When Gegen die Wand (Head-On) won the Golden Bear at the Berlin International Film Festival in 2004 it was hailed as a turning point for German cinema. Not only was this melodramatic love story the first German film in eighteen years to win Germany's most prestigious award, the victory of writer-director Fatih Akm was celebrated as the revival of German auteur cinema in the tradition of the critically acclaimed New German Cinema.! The fact that German film-making, which had lost much of its international acclaim after the death of Rainer Werner Fassbinder and the demise of the New German Cinema in the 1980s, was revitalised by a German filmmaker of Turkish descent, was an added bonus since it seemed to testify that the Berlin Republic was a cosmopolitan nation in which ethnic and cultural diversity were flourishing. While media debates in Germany and in Turkey and scholarly discourse on Akm and Head-On have revolved predominantly around issues of identity politics, surprisingly little attention has been paid to the film's appropriation and hybridisation of the generic conventions of melodrama and its transnational aesthetics. Yet its status as a modern classic rests first and foremost on its engagement with multisited aesthetic repertoires that appeal to diverse transnational audiences, in particular, to the cinephile followers of global art cinema. Like Mathieu Kassovitz's La Haine (Hate, 1995) about a mixed-race trio of young male friends from a rundown housing estate in the Parisian banlieue, Head-On also succeeded in moving from the ethnic niche, to which European films set in an ethnic minority milieu had hitherto been relegated, to a more mainstream position. This repositioning, which Kobena Mercer and Isaac Julien have (in relation to Black British cinema) famously described as the move from 'de margin to de centre', is in large

7

8

BFI FILM CLASSICS

measure based on the films' distinctive style: the gritty yet cool blackand-white cinematography and hip-hop aesthetics of La Haine on the one hand, and the hybrid aesthetics of transnational melodrama in Head-On on the other.2 Additionally, Head-On hooks its audience with a compelling narrative that is a far cry from the social problems and predictable conflicts of the first wave of Turkish German cinema. Eschewing the familiar ethnic stereotype of the victimised Turkish woman, which has dominated German screens since Shirins Hochzeit (Shirin's Wedding, 1976) and Vierzig Quadratmeter Deutschland (Forty Square Metres of Germany, 1986), Akin's film is about an amour fou between two social outsiders, whose problems do not so much stem from their Turkish descent as from their unstable and sel f-destructive personalities.

Synopsis Head-On is the story of a dark and destructive passion, which unexpectedly develops between twenty-year-old Sibel (Sibel Kekilli) and forty-year-old Cahit (Birol Unel), both of Turkish origin and living in Hamburg. They meet in a psychiatric clinic after having attempted suicide: Sibel by slitting her wrists, Cahit by driving his car head-on into a brick wall (hence the film's German title, Gegen die Wand, literally translated as 'against the wall'). The beautiful and highly promiscuous Sibel proposes a marriage of convenience to Cahit because she hopes to escape from her family's vigilant efforts to protect her honour through an alibi marriage. '1 want to live, Cahit. I want to live, I want to dance, I want to fuck. And not just with one guy. Do you understand?', she explains the rationale behind her unconventional marriage proposal. Cahit, who makes a living clearing up empty bottles and drinking the dregs in Die Fabrik, a cultural venue in Hamburg Altona, appears to be the ideal husband in such a set-up since he has nothing to lose and is likely to give Sibel the freedom she desires, while his Turkish background will make him acceptable in the eyes of her parents. When Cahit, who is far more interested in beer and cocaine than in a

HEAD-ON

wife, refuses to oblige, Sibel grabs a beer bottle, smashes it and, in order to emphasise how desperately she needs his help, slits her wrists with the shards. Although Sibel is evidently going to add to Cahit's troubles, he agrees to marry her. Undergoing the first in a series of transformations, he shaves his beard, has a haircut and together with his loyal friend Seref (Guven Kira In the UK, it did not get into cinemas until 18 february 2005, that is one year after the festival premiere in Berlin. Eve Gabereau of Soda Pictures attributes

HEAD-ON

French, Turkish, German and UK film posters

31

" i '"

CUM U.ASSJCS

the film's disappointing performance at the British box office (where it was seen by only 20,059 viewers) to the fact that the core audiences had already watched the film when it was released on DVD in Turkey and Germany in late summer 2004. 37 Though reasonably successful for an independent art house film in terms of box-office takings (grossing $11 million worldwide),38 the status of Head-On as a contemporary classic of European cinema rests first and foremost on its critical acclaim. After winning the Golden Bear, the film continued to garner numerous other prestigious prizes, including the German Film Award in 2004 for 'Outstanding Feature Film', 'Best Direction', 'Best Actress', 'Best Actor' and 'Best Cinematography'; and the European Film Award 2004 for 'Best Film' and 'Best Direction'. With twelve nominations and a total of twentyfour awards at film festivals in Spain, Norway, the USA, Mexico and further afield, Head-On aptly illustrates how the networked totality of the international festival circuit functions as an important promotional platform for the auteur and as a marketing tool that bestows cultural value and prestige upon independent cinema from around the world. At the same time, festivals operate as a global marketplace for co-producers, distributors and exhibitors and are, therefore, indispensible to art cinema's global reach.

-

---

-------------,----

HCADON

I"

2 Caught up in Identity Politics: From Turkish German Film-maker to Transnational Auteur The press conference at the Berlin Film Festival set the tone for the media reception that would surround Head-On for weeks to come. In fact, the jury's decision to award the prestigious prize to a German director of Turkish descent was interpreted as an important political signal that reflected a change of attitude in Germany, a country that despite its long history of immigration had been refusing to acknowledge that it is an 'immigration country'. 19 Right from the start, Head-On was harnessed to a wider political agenda, both in Germany and in Turkey Most German journalists were primarily interested in the film's discursive intervention into public debates about immigration, integration and belonging. They sifted it for sociological evidence about the Turkish immigrant community in Germany and pigeonholed Akm as a migrant film-maker and spokesperson for his ethnic constituency, regardless of the fact that on countless occasions Akm has rejected the label 'migrant film-maker' and similar designations. When he was asked at the Berlinale press conference whether or not Head-On provides a realistic account of 'Gastarbeiter', as labour migrants used to be called in Germany, he declared: The term guest worker [... ] is not even part of my vocabulary. There are still many journalists around, many journalists, who come and ask me whether this film is about guest workers? This is a very chauvinist, outmoded way of thinking. There are no guest workers, there is no such thing [ .. ]. Whether you like or it not, we are Germans 40

Refusing to act as native informant and to carry what Kobena Mercer has called 'the burden of representation',41 Akm explained

that in Head-On he did not intend to create a representative image of his ethnic constituency, but that instead his film tells the story of two outsiders who are marginalised by a community of outsiders. As if not heeding the writer-director's own words, many film critics stubbornly persisted in interpreting AkIn's film as an authentic milieu study of Turkish Muslim families in Germany, reiterating all the cultural stereotypes with which this ethnic minority has been tarnished: headscarves, patriarchal oppression and violence against women, forced marriage and honour killings. A review in the conservative newspaper Die Welt, 'which has been at the forefront in recent years when it comes to warning Germans about the dangers of Islam' illustrates this trend. 42 It discusses Head-On as a film that intervenes in the headscarf debate (the fact that Sibel is not once shown wearing a headscarf notwithstanding) and reminds its readers that 'Turkish women in Germany often do not have a choice; that orthodox Muslims try to prevent their daughters from participating in sex education and swimming lessons at school'.43 The critic then goes on to commend AkIn for creating a powerful counter-image, acknowledging that Sibel is a Turkish 'girl who has grown up in Germany and who also wants to live like a German' .44 Rather paradoxically, in praising AkIn for disavowing the prevalent stereotype, the article in Die Welt only reinforces it by yet again pitting the image of the liberated German woman against that of the oppressed Turkish one. Numerous other newspapers, whether conservative or liberal, deployed AkIn'S success at the Berlin Film Festival in order to debate a broad range of (un)related issues, including Turkey'S accession to the EU and the difficulties of being a Muslim in the West after 9111. An article with the headline 'The Turks Have Arrived' in the liberal weekly Die Zeit asserts that both Akm's victory as well as the media scandal surrounding the lead actress Sibel Kekilli have initiated a radical shift in German Turkish relations. Ozcan Mutlu, a representative of the Green Party in the Berlin parliament and, like Akm, a prominent Turk in German society, is cited thus: 'The more I

I

HEAD-ON' 35

come to think about it, the more convinced I am that Fatih Akm's success initiated a new era for us Turks here in Germany'.4S At long last, a Turkish immigrant's son had received the kind of public recognition that the entire Turkish German community had been waiting for. The German media celebrated him as a cultural ambassador who would be able to instil a sense of self-esteem and confidence in young, disenfranchised Turks living in Germany.41i On 4 October 2010, the twentieth anniversary of German unification, Akm received the highest public recognition when he was awarded the Honour of Merit of the Federal Republic. The President of the Federal Republic, Christian Wulff, commended Akm for his sociopolitical engagement and artistic achievements and praised the filmmaker for representing 'the life and problems of Germans of Turkish descent living in their German Heimat and the differences between German and Turkish society' in his films.47 Seemingly against his will, the young director of Turkish descent became not only a 'model migrant', whose artistic achievements testified that successful integration into German society was indeed attainable for Turkish immigrants, but also a spokesperson on fervently debated political issues. Journalists were more interested in Akm's views on Turkey's accession to the EU (a major news item at the time) than in his vision as a film-maker. Although initially reluctant to carry the mantle, he soon realised that his hyphenated identity put him in the privileged position of a distant, yet attached, observer of political affairs in Turkey. Realising that his public stature lent him a certain moral authority, Akm remarked that he felt 'a sense of responsibility' towards Turkey, even though he was 'running the risk of being regarded as someone who is fouling his own nest' if he publicly criticised his family's country of origin.4H In recent years, Akm shouldered this responsibility on several occasions. For example, he campaigned against turning a former copper mine near C;:amburnu on the Black Sea into an enormous landfill site for the garbage of the entire province of Trabzon. Akm

361

Brr fILM CLASSICS

,'.1

,I

,...... "

,, .",

had a personal connection with C;:amburnu; his father's ancestors hailed from this picturesque settlement and he filmed the final scene of The t;dge of Heaven there, His documentary Mull im Garten Eden (Garbage in the Garden of J:den aka Polluting Paradise, 2012) chronicles the transformation of C;:amburnu, an old fishing port surrounded by lush green tea plantations, into a foul-smelling garbage dump. Akm filming Garbage in the Garden oJEden, the waste disposal site in

~amburnu

HEAD-ON

AkIn also assumed a prominent role as a political ambassador when, in response to the Turkish government's violent suppression of the mass demonstrations in Istanbul's Taksim Square during the summer of 2013, he wrote an open letter in Turkish and in German to the President of State, Abdullah Giil. In the letter, he alerts the head of state to the ruthless acts of violence committed by the riot police against civilians, suggesting that Giil may be unaware because the Turkish media were prevented from reporting on these events. He concludes the letter by reminding the President of State of the promise he made when he came into office, namely to defend the civil rights of every Turkish citizen: 'I refuse to believe that you have abandoned your conscience for the sake of power. I am appealing to your conscience. Stop this madness!'.49 In examining the press coverage which Fatih Akm and Head-On received in Turkey, Ayc;a Tunc; Cox suggests that the director's celebrity status is as much due to his 'rhetorical skills and the political messages he embeds in his public speeches and interviews' as it is to 'his directorial merits or the artistic quality of his films'.50 In a similar vein, Nezih Erdogan describes Akll1 as 'a skilful strategist, complicit in the construction of an intriguing media image that sparks debates and controversies that go far beyond the themes and quality of his film'.51 Although neither Tunc; Cox nor Erdogan are implying that Akm's political interventions represent a strategic move to raise his public profile, both maintain that the Turkish media are far more interested in Akll1's star persona than in his films, which they attach to wider political issues such as Turkey'S position in the EU and Turkish identity politics. 52 In fact, until Akll1 won the Golden Bear, Turkish German film-makers received hardly any mention in the Turkish press - but with Head-On this changed. While German film critics celebrated Head-On as a revival of German cinema with the slogan 'the new German cinema is Turkish', Turkey celebrated Head-On as the first Turkish film in forty years to win the Golden Bear, after Susuz yaz (Dry Summer, 1964).53 This placed the Turkish German film-maker in a tricky situation, being literally caught between two countries. However,

37

38

BF! FILM CLASSICS

when Akm was asked whether Head-On, a German Turkish co-production, was in fact a Turkish or a German film, he demonstrated considerable diplomatic skill and declared: 'I consider myself a German film-maker. I make my films with German money, and I represent Germany. Sometimes I feel German, sometimes Turkish. But that's not a disadvantage. It is a source of creative inspiration, not an obstacle'.54 Whereas at the beginning of his directing career, Akm had downplayed his Turkish roots, the high public profile he has gained in Turkey since 2004 made him change tack and promote his dual allegiance. In the Turkish press, Akm was reported to have said: 'I am a gypsy in Hamburg and a dervish in Istanbul I... 1. My home is Hamburg but I am also the spicy voice of Istanbul. And I love spicy food. I need spice to feel alive'.55 In addition to the contested issue of whether or not Fatih Akm was Turkey's or in fact Germany's prodigal son, the reception of Head-On in the German and Turkish media was overshadowed by Fatih Akm

HEAD-ON

the revelation of Sibel Kekilli's past career as a porn actress, already briefly mentioned in the previous chapter. The German tabloid BildZeitung tried to get as much mileage as possible out of the story, running fourteen amply illustrated articles on the topic between 16 February and 11 March 2004, when the film went on theatrical release in German cinemas. Headlines in Bild repeatedly refer to Sibel Kekilli as 'sinful film diva' and, by juxtaposing titillating images of Kekilli in porn movies and stills from Head-On, the articles contend that her past career in the porn industry was ostensibly a useful training ground for her lead role in Head-On. Just as Sibel in Head-On shuns the traditional Turkish values, the real Sibel had apparently also turned her back on her family when she started making porn films - not just as a quick way to make money but also as a deliberate act of rebellion. The Bild-Zeitung further reports that in an exclusive interview Sibel's father, an honest and upright worker who acquired German citizenship, disowned his daughter for bringing such shame upon the family. 'With tears in his eyes, father Mehmet' reputedly declared 'Sibel is no longer part of our family.'56 In this way, Sibel Kekilli's mythic biography, as constructed in the tabloid press, establishes the fictional narrative of Head-On as a text that closely mirrors reality, thereby inviting spectators to indulge in a voyeuristic pleasure based on the illusion of biographical authenticity. The media scandal surrounding Kekilli proliferated when, in a rather sanctimonious fashion, reputable newspapers informed their readers of Bild-Zeitung's scandalous smear campaign, albeit not without themselves becoming complicit in precisely the kind of voyeurism and exploitation they supposedly denounced. The moral hypocrisy underpinning the coverage in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, Der Spiegel and the Siiddeutsche Zeitung is all the more obvious since the articles were variously accompanied by an image of Bild-Zeitung's front page, showing Kekilli performing in a porn film, or by a film still from Head-On that, not coincidentally, shows Sibel Kekilli and Birol Dnel in a naked embrace in bed. These revealing

40

BFI FILM CLASSICS

images seemed to imply that in Head-On Kekilli simply gives an arty rendition of her past performances in porn films.17 The response of the Turkish press to the Bild-Zeitung scoop was entirely unexpected. What caused moral outrage was not the lead actress's career in the porn industry but the derogatory manner in which the German press had reported the issue. A journalist writing for Hurriyet states that 'the attacks on Kekilli were treated as if they were a matter of national importance, and consequently, she had to be protected from the evil unleashed by the "other" nation's press' and suspects 'that the German press did not want to acknowledge the sLiccess of a Turkish film and, for that reason, despicably assaulted the actress to undermine the credibility of the film'. \~ Other Turkish papers, too, evinced a surprisingly liberal stance and took sides with Kekilli, perha ps in the attempt to turn the fierce battle over the film's national ownership to their advantage. Only a comparatively small number of articles in the German press ignored or even purposely rejected the debates surrounding Sibel ~Hld Cahit reunited in Istanbul (© W(iste Film GmbH, photographer Kerstin Stelter)

HEAD-ON

Head-On, most of which had failed to address the movie's cinematic qualities. A review entitled 'Punk or Turkish Folklore' in the German weekly Die Zeit asserts that Akm's film and especially its powerful musical score eschews cultural stereotyping, while Oliver Huttmann in Spiegel Online insists that Aktn's 'breathless drama of the disempowered' should not be celebrated as a landmark of Turkish German cinema but instead as a film that deserves praise in its own right. 59 In contrast to those reviews that interpreted Head-On as if it was a sociologically accurate milieu study, Huttmann suggests that the story would have been equally powerful if it had been set in Asia or Latin America. What makes Head-On unique is its untamed spirit, vibrant energy and brutal honesty. 'In ten years', Huttmann predicted in 2004, Akm 'will be recognised as one of Europe's greatest directors.'60 The most compelling case for not pigeonholing Head-On as yet another migrant drama was made by Feridun Zaimoglu, a prolific writer and the enfant terrible of the Turkish German literary scene, in a review published in Der Tagesspiegel: No, this is not post-migrant cinema, not a treatise on love between Turks, not your average film about the suffering of young love-stricken men and women. In his grandiose love epic, Fatih Akm has revived German Romanticism, in fact, he has purged it of its gushing hollow enthusiasm and branded it with Orientalist ardour61

Unencumbered by the never-ending immigration and identity debates that dominated the German and Turkish press coverage of Head-On, film critics in the UK and the US were able to appreciate the film as film. They appeared to be especially intrigued by the film's ambiguous position between art house and popular cinema. In several reviews Akl11 is praised for creating a truly unconventional love story that invokes the generic formula of the romantic comedy while infusing it with a dark destructive passion, making it a far cry from popular romcoms and wedding films such as Green Card, The Wedding Banquet and My Big Fat Creel