Watch Head-On For Free

I wanted to but couldn't!

hyped garbage

Best movie ever!

Great story, amazing characters, superb action, enthralling cinematography. Yes, this is something I am glad I spent money on.

As with many foreign films I probably would never have heard of this German-Turkish film if it wasn't featured in the book 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die, so that was for me the best reason to try it. Basically forty something Turkish German man Cahit Tomruk (Birol Ünel) has given up on life after his wife died and takes cocaine and drinks alcohol to get through everyday, and one night he attempts suicide driving his car head-on into a wall, but he barely survives the crash. He is taken to a psychiatric clinic where he meets another Turkish German, also suicidal Sibel Güner (Sibel Kekilli), and she asks him to carry out the most bizarre plan, she wants him to marry her, with no questions asked, so that she can break away from her strict conservative family, he is outraged by the idea. Eventually though Cahit agrees to the plan she explains she prefers a sex life independently, the have separate private lives but share a place as roommates, but as time goes by they do fall in love, but he kills a former lover of her's in anger and goes to prison. While he is locked away Sibel gets away from her family travelling to Istanbul to stay with Selma (Meltem Cumbul), her divorced hotel manager cousin, she accepts a job in the hotel, but finds her new life restrictive like prison, so she goes to live in the apartment of a bartender who gives her drugs and alcohol. The bartender rapes her and throws her out, and wandering the streets following this she antagonises three men to beat her up severely, continuing to urge them on to the point when one pulls a knife, and they run and leave her for dead. Several years pass, Cahit has been released and goes to Istanbul to find his wife, Selma initially refuses to tell him where she is, but she tells him she is in a long-term relationship and with a daughter, we do not see how she recovered from the rape and beating. Cahit waits for Sibel to call him, and they meet and make love, he wants her to run away with him to which she agrees, but packing she hears her husband and is delighted to see her daughter, so she never returns to Cahit, he travels on a bus somewhere, possibly to his birth city Mersin. Also starring Catrin Striebeck as Maren, Stefan Gebelhoff as Nico and Hermann Lause as Dr. Schiller. It is a recognisable story of a non romantic encounter with an odd circumstance, in this case a non- relationship based wedding, and slowly falling in love over time, but also there are distinctive moments that stand out, for me especially the very violent beating of the leading woman, and also drug taking and alcoholism, it is a most watchable romantic drama. Very good!

Though translated as Head-On, Gegen die Wand actually means Into the Wall. Title that would be much more appropriate, as it sums up the whole story. Faith Akin was the master of all this, and understanding his life you can relate a lot of information with the movie, as he was born in Hamburg, son of a Turkish family. Anyway, Gegen die Wand starts with Cahit Tomruk (Birol Ünel), from forgotten Turkish descent. He lives a miserable life in a hole of an apartment in Hamburg. He even tries suiciding, crashing his car in a wall but he survives. While in therapy, he meets Sibel (Sibel Kekilli). At first, she challenges him to marry her, explaining that would let her get rid of her family and would not imply any sort of physical intercourse between them both. Obviously that doesn't happen, as in American romance, both fall in love with each other, but the beauty in this film is that it's much more complicated, taken to its extreme. The most interesting of this movie is observing the development of the characters, especially Cahit. Alltough both main characters come from therapy after attempting suicide, the main goal of the argument doesn't lie in warning for the beauty of life, its importance and how stupid it would be to end it, stuff like that. No. Breathtaking drama with two very good performances. Fine selection. 7/10

Cahit Tomruk (Birol Unel) and Sibel Guner (Sibel Kekilli) are immigrant Germans who live and work in the port town of Hamburg. In a bid to help Sibel break free of her family (which strictly adheres to Turkish customs, religious and otherwise), the couple decides to marry. But straitlaced families are just part of the problem; Cahit and Sibel must also counterbalance ancestral roots with their new life in a western democracy.The film starts with a very surreal opening with a band performing a song about unrequited love on the beach in a foreign land. This band returns a couple times throughout the movie. Why? Perhaps to remind us of the foreign nature of Turkey, or simply to maintain the surrealism.This is a Turkish-German hybrid, with a forced marriage to boot. We might be familiar with American stories of people marrying to become citizens. But here, for Americans, we have a double foreign atmosphere -- Germany, with Turkish immigrants. A foreign culture for most of us, with an even more foreign culture mixed in. The story is a universal, timeless one, but in a whole new setting.Some social topics such as sexual intimacy and fidelity are brought up, that I think bear discussion. The wife insists on sexual promiscuity, but refuses to sleep with her husband. The husband, on the other hand, sees the marriage as real and does not pursue other women, though he receives no affection at home. Ironically, the person from the more strict culture has a permissive moral code, and the liberal partner is strict.I enjoyed seeing the game of Rummikub show up, but have nothing further to say about it. (Rummikub was invented by Ephraim Hertzano, a Romanian-born Jew, who immigrated to Mandate Palestine in the early 1930s. Does this have anything to do with the story? Probably not.)Things get worse around the middle of the film, and this is where the original title ("Into the Wall") begins to make sense. I will not get into it for fear of ruining the plot, but this is when the film goes from good to great. I think the third act is somewhat weaker, but seeing the two adapt to married life (with their own unique versions) is a visual treat.

I have previously seen only one film by director Faith Akin 'Crossing the Bridge: The Sound of Istanbul' - a documentary full of love for the city of Istanbul and its music, which had made me wish to visit this place where I have never been. 'Gegen die Wand' is a fiction movie, and a very different strong and ambitious one. It's the story of two Turkish immigrants in Germany, a man over 40 and a girl half his age entering a marriage of convenience so that the girl can escape the pressure of the family to enter into a convenience marriage and can live a 'normal' 'free' life. When the pretended marriage develops their love will play both the role of savior and destruction. They will be saved as love gives sense to their destinies marked by disorientation and suicidal tendencies, they risk to be destroyed as in a very melodramatic but but still believable twist of fate they will never be able to fulfill their feelings into common fate. They will be save but pursue of happiness needs to happen on separate paths.I liked the film, and I believe that its charm resides in the fact that the director does not refuse but instead adopts the ways, sounds and eventually images (the first half of the film happens in Germany, the second one in Turkey) of the Turkish cinema. Story telling takes what it needs from the oriental melodrama and combines it with modern cut and discrete acting. We do have musical prologues, intermezzo and finale, all filmed in a conventional touristic like manner on the shores of the Bosporus, just underlining the drama of the music and of the text in an operatic manner. We are being taken into the Turkish enclave in Hamburg, and in the fascinating combination of old, new, sea and colors so well known for everybody who visited and loved the cities around the Mediterranean. Birol Ünel and Sibel Kekilli give strong performances and the overall film atmosphere gives a feeling of authenticity and sincerity. The social commentary is sharp and not forgiving when it comes to the conflicts between the traditional and the modern societies. This was my first experience with a Turkish fiction film and a very positive one.