Auf der anderen Seite (2007)

User Rating:

8.0/10   

Director:

Fatih Akin

Writer:

Fatih Akin (writer)

Release Date:

27 September 2007 (Germany)

Genre:

Drama

Plot:

A Turkish man travels to Istanbul to find the daughter of his father's former girlfriend.

Plot Keywords:

Turkey | Istanbul | Germany | Death | Prostitute

Awards:

20 wins & 9 nominations

Cast

Nurgül Yesilçay	...	Ayten Öztürk aka Gül
Baki Davrak	...	Nejat Aksu
Tuncel Kurtiz	...	Ali Aksu
Hanna Schygulla	...	Susanne Staub
Patrycia Ziolkowska	...	Charlotte 'Lotte' Staub
Nursel Köse	...	Yeter aka Jessy
rest of cast listed alphabetically:
Erkan Can	...	Nejat's Cousin
Yusuf Kaba	...	Flute player
Yelda Reynaud	...	Emine
Lars Rudolph	...	Markus Obermüller
Andreas Thiel	...	Konsulatsmitarbeiter

Also Known As:

Ai confini del paradiso (Italy)
On the Other Side (International: English title) (literal title)
The Edge of Heaven (International: English title)
Yasamin kiyisinda (Turkey: Turkish title)

Runtime:

122 min

Country:

Germany | Turkey | Italy

Language:

German | Turkish | English

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Sound Mix:

Dolby Digital EX

Certification:

Germany:12 | Switzerland:14 (canton of Geneva) | Switzerland:14 (canton of Vaud) | Australia:M | UK:15 (re-rating on appeal) | UK:18 (original rating) | France:Unrated | Sweden:15 | Ireland:15A (re-rating on appeal) | Ireland:16 (original rating) | Taiwan:PG-12 | Finland:K-11 | Canada:14A (Ontario) | Argentina:13 | South Korea:15 | Japan:PG-12

Filming Locations:

Bremen, Germany

Company:

Anka Film

Trivia:

Baki Davrak was cast very late into proceedings and subsequently missed Akin's standard three-week rehearsal period. To bring him up to speed, Akin took him on a trip to Turkey.

Goofs:

Factual errors: In the film, the year is 2006 and it is the Festival of Sacrifices (Kurban Bayrami), a religious holiday. Everybody is in summer clothes and many of them are sweating. The Festival of Sacrifices in 2006 in Turkey was in winter, at the end of December.

Movie Connections:

Referenced in "At the Movies: Summer Special 2008/09" (2008)

Soundtrack:

Menuet In G Moll, No. 5 Klavierbüchlein für Anna Magdalena

Where is the edge of heaven?

Auf der anderen Seite (2007), written and directed by Faith Akin, was shown in the U.S. with the title "The Edge of Heaven." This is a powerful and moving drama that interweaves the stories of six people--a father and son, and two mother-daughter pairs. The father and son are from Turkey, but live in Germany. At the outset of the movie, one of the mother- daughter pairs is separated, with the mother in Germany and the daughter in Turkey. The other mother-daughter pair are Germans living in Germany. By the end of the movie, for various reasons, each of the six has traveled from one country to the other.

Faith Akin, himself a German of Turkish heritage, obviously understands and is comfortable in both worlds. Some of the characters in the film make the transition from one culture to the other seamlessly, but some suffer from extreme culture shock, and all of them are changed.

The acting is uniformly excellent. I particularly admired Nurgül Yesilçay as a Turkish student and radical, and Patrycia Ziolkowska as the young German woman who befriends her. Fassbinder's muse, the incomparable Hanna Schygulla, has possibly the most difficult role of the six, and, as always, she is outstanding.

We saw that film at the Rochester High Falls International Film Festival, but it will work well on a small screen. This is an extraordinary film, and it's definitely worth finding and viewing.