ViewGuide

Created Jul 19, 2008 06:56PM PST • Edited Jan 06, 2019 06:00AM PST

1. Quality

2. Summary

   Great 4.0

   Father-son, mother-daughter, daughter-mother, Germany-Turkey: This movie grippingly explores the intersections of four relationships – three familial, one cultural. Superior to Babel and Crash, similar movies about class and chance, The Edge of Heaven adroitly traverses from one interpersonal relationship to another. This becomes quite enthralling, as became apparent at the end of the movie when I found myself standing in the back of the theater with half a dozen strangers, waiting for the inevitable next event. Like Godot, it never came. Now that’s drama.

   The movie comes by its drama the old fashioned way: sex, murder, intrigue, more sex, another murder, and love – between parent and child, between lovers and between friends. Presenting this human tableau in present-day Europe, complete with Islamic ethnic and religious tensions, makes it all the more fascinating.

4. Acting

   Great 4.0

   Turkish actor Tuncel Kurtiz stands out as a randy old man who drinks too much and falls for a “woman of easy virtue.”

   Cabaret star Nursel Köse delivers a fierce and touching performance as the lady of the night who despairs of ever seeing her daughter again.

   Turkish star Nurgül Yesilçay jumps off the screen as the strong daughter of her mother’s dreams.

   Patrycia Ziolkowska, though Polish, touchingly plays the German girl who falls in love with the Turkish girl. Yes, girl-girl.

   Finally, famous German actress Hanna Schygulla tenderly portrays the mother who can’t keep her grown daughter safe.

5. Male Stars Great 4.0

6. Female Stars Great 4.0

7. Female Costars Great 4.0

8. Male Costars Great 4.0

10. Film

    Very Good 3.5

    Writer-Director Fatih Akin deserves huge credit for creating this terrific movie. Born in Germany of Turkish parentage, he hails from the worlds brought together in his movie.

11. Direction Really Great 4.5

12. Play Really Great 4.5

    Won Best Screenplay at Cannes in 2007. Deserved it.

    One warning: the dialogue, mostly in German and Turkish, moves fairly fast, leading to swift subtitles.

13. Music Good 3.0

14. Visuals Very Good 3.5
15. Content

16. Edge

    Risqué 1.7

17. Sex Titillating 2.0

    The sex scenes lead up to dirty deeds but never show them. Nonetheless, one comes away with a new found appreciation for French…

18. Violence Fierce 1.6

    Shocking and natural, albeit not bloody or extended.

19. Rudeness Polite 1.5

21. Reality

    Glib 1.1

    The movie peeks into the Turkish subculture of present day Germany. Part of what it shows is unsurprising: the haphazard assimilation and economic striving of an underclass immigrant community. Part is chilling: the self-appointed Islamic puritans who rove German streets and trains, threatening Muslims who veer from strict observance.

22. Circumstantial Glib 1.3

23. Biological Natural 1.0

24. Physical Natural 1.0