The Edge of Heaven

Faith Akin's film on Turkish Muslims living in Germany and in Turkey is engaging and interesting from its opening to its close. It follows a popular trend of films of hypothesizing a world that is smaller than we think. The stories being told here are about people who are connected even when they don't know it. This is much in the style of Alejandro González Iñárritu and others with their connected narratives. As a general rule I find this sort of narrative annoying but Akin thankfully steers clear of many of the realizations of its a small world after all. In fact many moments in the film stress how simple actions keep two connected people from ever meeting.

The film starts with Yeter, Nejat and his father Ali. Yeter is a prostitute, who is preferred by Ali. A pair of fundamentalist Muslims note that she is living in sin one day and offer her the opportunity to repent. She quickly takes up an offer to live as a concubine of sorts with Ali. She meets Nejat and they get along well. An unfortunate accident sends Nejat on a quest to find Yeter's daughter Ayten. Ayten has had here own story as a radical protester of the Turkish government, she flees to Germany to find her mother. There she meets and falls in love with Lotte who helps her with her case for asylum.

Its hard to say more without revealing significant plot points. Suffice to say that overall the story telling is very effective, moving and engaging. There are occasional overdone moments such as "near miss" moments of two story lines that are kind of annoying. These are usually made up by deeply intimate moments of character development. The most moving of which acts like a security camera capturing the grief of a mother from a fixed overhead shot.

The film is wonderfully developed in terms of character and beautifully shot. It tackles interesting topics including forgiveness. It feels like a real world both the Turkish community in Germany and Turkey itself.