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| Edge of Heaven | 
 enlarge | Director: Fatih Akin
Actors: Nurgul Yesilcay, Baki Davrak, Tuncel Kurtiz, Hanna Schygulla, Patrycia Ziolkowska
Studio: Strand Releasing
Category: DVD
List Price: $27.99
Buy New: $15.85
You Save: $12.14 (43%)
New (24) Used (7) from $15.25
Avg. Customer Rating:  8 reviews
Sales Rank: 4893
Format: Color, Dolby, Dvd-video, Ntsc, Subtitled, Widescreen
Languages: English (Original Language), German (Original Language), English (Subtitled)
Rating: Unrated
Number Of Items: 1
Running Time: 116
Aspect Ratio: 1.66:1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.2
Dimensions (in): 7.1 x 5.4 x 0.6
MPN: 2801
UPC: 712267280124
EAN: 0712267280124
ASIN: B001DB6J82
Theatrical Release Date: 2007
Release Date: October 14, 2008
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Product Description
Studio: Strand Releasing Release Date: 10/14/2008 Run time: 116 minutes Rating: Ur
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| Customer Reviews: Read 3 more reviews...
Some Keen Observations of Parent Child Relationships October 26, 2008
22 out of 23 found this review helpful
THE EDGE OF HEAVEN (AUF DER ANDEREN SEITE) is a superb piece of writing by writer/director Fatih Akin - a study essentially about family fragility and strength as heightened by the immigrant struggles that both bond and divide. It is an intelligent film, well acted, and presented in a challenging manner that defines it as an art film of the first order.
We are given three families to inspect, families whose paths cross not only by coincidence by also by a common 'border' between Germany and Turkey - a division that provides not only tension and emphasis in separation and communication flaws in relationships, but also allows the sensitive cinematographer the opportunity to contrast the dark German portions with the hot light of the Turkish segments.
The film opens innocently enough with a scene where young professor Nejat (Baki Davrak), a Turkish immigrant teaching in Germany, stops for gas - an ordinary event in life that will be recapitulated at movie's close. Nejat's elderly father Ali Aksu (Yuncel Kurtiz) wanders the red light district and encounters a Turkish immigrant hooker Yeter (Nusel Kose) whom he invites to come live with him for the same money that she would make in prostitution. The home setting (Nejat, Ali, Yeter) is flawed and at the moment of dissolution Yeter dies accidentally during an altercation with Ali. Ali is jailed and Nejat feels compelled to go to Istanbul to find and assist Yeter's daughter. Meanwhile Yeter's daughter Ayten (Nurgut Yesilcay) is participating in anti government demonstrations and manages to flee to Germany to find her mother and is befriended by Lotte (Patrycia Ziokowska), a student whose mother Susanne (Hanna Schygulla) disapproves of Lotte's relationship with Ayten. Ayten is forced to flee to Istanbul, Lotte follows and tragedy occurs. In a manner of twists and turns and fast-forwards and reflective moments the three families (Nejat/Ali, Yeter/Ayten, and Susanne/Lotte) intersect, always propelled by the need for acceptance and love and succor.
The levels of interpretation are many and writer/director Fatih Akin serves them well. The superb cinematography is in the masterful hands of Rainer Klausmann and the musical score is enhanced by recordings of a late Turkish artist as integrated by composer Shantel . This is a stunning, fast paced, emotionally involving film filled with pleas of understanding of many problems that daily call for our attention. In Turkish, German an English with subtitles. Grady Harp, October 08
The Perimeters of Chance August 20, 2008
5 out of 5 found this review helpful
The emotional impact of this bleak cinema will not need enhancement, and the "story" is intentionally predictable from about minute 15 to the end. What I want to address is the "intellectual" content, since I think this is a film with fairly explicit intellectual aspirations -- in other words, a movie that makes a statement about life.
Coincidental relationships and chance encounters frame nearly every action/event of this film. Nothing that happens is inevitable or dramatically "necessary", yet everything is contingent on random intersections of people and places that another film-maker might perceive as fateful or predestined. Yet equally possible coincidences and indeed encounters that "we" are set up to expect don't occur as expected. Coincidence is no more powerful than non-coincidence; contingency is awkwardly random in the film-maker's vision of life, and resolution is utterly illusory. Perhaps only a Turk, or another person raised in a culture of religious predeterminism, could offer such insights into the linear inconsequentiality of existence -- "just one d_mn thing after another."
The Edge of Heaven is also a painful depiction of alienation -- the alienation of 'guestworker" Turks in Germany, of political dissidence, and of generational conflict, a father-son and a mother-daughter, the former Turks and the latter Germans. This isn't the core of the movie so much as the substrate in which the character development takes place.
Wonderful acting! Especially from Hanna Schygulla, who plays the German mother so plausibly that you will hardly remember her as the star of German "art" films of yesteryear. Any time an actor/actress is unrecognizable, that's art!
Definitely a movie that you will leave feeling less ebullient than when you arrived; the reward is emotional insight rather than entertainment. It reminded me a good deal of Babel, though it's more modest and perhaps more real. If you appreciated Babel, you will surely relish Edge of Heaven.
Friendship and Sexuality September 18, 2008
3 out of 8 found this review helpful
"The Edge of Heaven"
Friendship and Sexuality
Amos Lassen
Universal love is the topic of Strand Releasing's new film by Faith Akin, "The Edge of Heaven". The film is overlapping tales which become a powerful narrative about the nature of love.
Six characters are brought together by circumstance. There is an older man and a prostitute who are working at a partnership, a young academic scholar who wants to reconcile his past, two young women who are in the process of falling in love, and a mother who is reclaiming her life. As Akin looks at the human condition and the world as we know it, the stories come together and we sit and are drawn toward an explosive climax.
The film is something of a political view of the problem of the Kurds and Europeans. There is a strong political and social commentary on preconceptions and stereotypes but they provide merely the setting for a story that is more personal---the opening of the soul and crossing the lines between ourselves and those who love us. Here this story is repeated three times, each in a different context.
The film is touching on many different levels and the impact on the protagonists is devastating, absorbing and overwhelming.
As Akin focuses on the Turkish-German community, we see three families who are connected in some way and by telling their stories; Akin brings issues of multiculturalism and globalization to the fore. The characters begin and end up as just ordinary people with emotions and problems. However, in the end we realize that we have seen a film about love and hope.
The story is presented in a simple, straight-forward manner and we see love from different angles as it examines Europe with her increasingly expanding borders and homogeneity. The cast is uniformly excellent and the film exudes realism. Here is a film that deserves all the praise it has received.
 Between Germany and Turkey, Lives Cross Paths and Intertwine. October 24, 2008
3 out of 4 found this review helpful
"The Edge of Heaven" is a literally cross-cultural story that hinges on crossed paths between its German and Turkish characters. Deft handling of complexity and coincidence won writer/director Fatih Akin a host of awards in Europe, including Best Screenplay at Cannes, Best Direction at the German Film Awards, and Best Foreign Film at France's Cesars. Ali Aksu (Tuncel Kurtiz), a retired Turkish immigrant in Germany, invites a prostitute named Yeter (Nusel Kose), also a Turkish immigrant, to live with him. Ali's college professor son Nejat (Baki Davrak) is surprised by the arrangement but fond of Yeter. When Yeter dies, Nejat visits Turkey to find her grown daughter Ayten (Nurgut Yesilcay) with the intention of paying for her education. But Ayten's radical political activity have already compelled her to leave Turkey to seek her mother in Germany.
The film's division into four parts, only the last of which is entirely chronological, creates an interesting symmetry. The two central parts address Ali and Yeter's relationship and Ayten's relationship with a sympathetic German university student named Lotte (Patrycia Ziokowska), respectively. Two couples. But the brief opening sequence feels superfluous, as if it has been added only to balance the end of the film. Apart from that, this oddly structured film seems natural even though it relies heavily on coincidences. Two generations cross paths as well as two cultures: What Ali, Yeter, and Lotte's mother Susanne (Hanna Schygulla) want for their children is slyly compared to what Nejat, Ayten, and Lotte want for themselves. "Edge of Heaven" feels like a carefully crafted European character drama with a welcome helping of grit. In German, Turkish, and English with subtitles.
The DVD (Strand Releasing 2008): Bonus features are a theatrical trailer (1 1/2 min) and a documentary entitled "The Making of The Edge of Heaven" (56 min), which is too long but includes behind-the-scenes footage and interviews with director Fatih Akin. He discusses story, themes, cast, the script, rehearsing, and directing the film. The cast makes some brief appearances. The documentary is in German with English subtitles. The English subtitles for the documentary and for the film cannot be turned off.
Fabulous Film August 18, 2008
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
A first-rate flick! Fabulous story, powerful interplay between the six leads, intriguing mode of unfolding coincidental parallel and near parallel paths. All the more tellingly resonant for me having recently travelled from Istanbul through Trabazon(where the film concludes)amd like the grieving German mum, had been in the place 30 years before. Of course, the soundtrack grabs by the chest fibres and cools them after they've been rent by the tragedy we witness. Wonderful moment of awakened compassion from the aforesaid mum, in Istanbul when she opens her heart to the younger Turkish woman. Reconciliation of the deepest kind is possible. This is real and painful and lovingly conveyed. A must see.
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