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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: $15.40
You Save: $12.59 (45%)
New (9) Used (1) from $15.40
Avg. Customer Rating:  10 reviews
Sales Rank: 3330
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 5 more reviews...
This Film Makes Us See w/ New Eyes December 18, 2008
Instead of a clunky description of the story, here are two examples of masterful filmmaking from this amazing film.
Example #1: The iconic German actress Hanna Schygulla plays the aged mother of one of the main characters. Her daughter, a German university student with an idealistic streak, brings a Turkish woman whom she has just met, to stay in their house. The daughter wants to help the Turkish woman, who is homeless and an illegal immigrant. The mother seems to project quiet disapproval and warns the daughter about harboring an illegal alien. In this manner, the film makes the viewer think he or she is seeing a contrast between the staid mother and the bohemian rebellious daughter.
Later, however, the film reveals that this staid mother is not who the viewer has come to think she is. In her youth, she was also a free spirit and a bit of a bohemian who hitchhiked to India. She shows herself to be someone so different than who she seemed to be.
Thus, the viewer's very perception is challenged and this character is revealed to be complex and truly human and not the "type" that the viewer has pegged her to be. In other words, the film challenges and undermines the viewers' perception to provide true insight.
Example #2: The opening scene of the film is of a car driving into a gas station in rural Turkey. A man gets out of the car, asks the gas station attendant to fill it up, then goes inside to the little convenience store, where he buys some snacks and exchanges small talk with the shopkeeper about a song that is playing on the radio. The shopkeeper says the singer is from the region but died of cancer due to fallout from Chernobyl that's only revealing itself to the public now. The man pays for his stuff and the scene ends. It's a two-minute scene. No tension. No conflict. No nothing. Completely mundane. Something that could happen to anyone.
Ninety-minutes of the film later, the same scene is replayed in exactly the same form. No changes. But the film has revealed the events that have led up to this man's setting foot in that gas station. It's the same scene. The same two minutes. But now, it's filled with tension, true pathos, and an abundance of meaning.
Again, this is an example where the film shows us something, makes us think we see it, only to reveal that what we think we're seeing is not so. It challenges the expectations and perception of the viewer. It makes us see with new eyes.
Delicate and moving story of fathers and sons and mothers and daughters November 29, 2008
Faith Akin's latest film tells the overlapping stories of six individuals whose lives are caught between Turkey and Germany. A father's careless act sends his son back to their Turkish homeland on a quest for restitution. A daughter's involvement in an anti-government protest that leads to violence forces her to leave her home and search for her estranged mother in Germany. A young German woman's fierce loyalty to her Turkish lover puts her in harm's way. A German mother travels to Turkey in search of a lost daughter.
Each central character is in many ways unsympathetic, and certainly none of them would want or require anyone's pity, yet somehow in the course of the film all had won my profound sympathy and concern. What is remarkable about the film is that the unexpected and unpredictable ways in which their lives connect are depicted in such compelling fashion as to make them feel utterly plausible and profound.
This is a delicate film, more profound and yet more subtle than Akin's previous Head-On [Gegen die Wand] which was much more intense (and quite amazing), yet did not move me as strongly as this one.
I would hate to spoil the many delights of this film by saying much more, but I cannot say enough about how delightful this film really is. Highly recommended for the right kind of viewer. (in Turkish and German w/ English subtitles available)
Prima! November 14, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
This has to be Fatih Akin's best movie yet. Excellent movie with a great soundtrack. We get to see some of the Turkish-German relations. I strongly recommend regardless if you know German or Turkish!
 subtle and very watchable November 6, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
The Edge of Heaven, to give you it's correct title, is a film that has received a lot of attention from worldwide film buffs. What you have here is a film that explores identity in a world in which realisations come much too late but, God willing, come.
There are several characters in the film whose stories interconnect and whose lives directly or indirectly affect one another's. The German professor, his father, his father's girlfriend, his father's girlfriend's daughter, his father's girlfriend's daughter's girlfriend...you see where this is going, a domino-like effect in narration which builds up throughout the film.
The Edge of Heaven does not attempt to bash you over the head with its meaning. It takes its time to show you, to move you, and its cinematography is never anything less than beautiful. The actors do a good job (although the Turkish girl is slightly grating) and my personal favourite is the old man: bitter, independent and very much alive.
Comes highly recommended.
Some Keen Observations of Parent Child Relationships October 26, 2008
34 out of 36 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
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