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Undescribable Perfection

That was an excellent one.

It’s not bad or unwatchable but despite the amplitude of the spectacle, the end result is underwhelming.

This is a gorgeous movie made by a gorgeous spirit.

A desperate attempt to mimic American mafia/gangster movies, this cliché-ridden mess plays as if a Hamburg high-school drama club had decided to stage a re-enactment of Brian De Palma's "Scarface". The non-stop, completely over-the-top profanities are, for the most part, unintentionally funny, the acting is limited to the usual swanky sputtering of threats and cuss-words through heavily gritted teeth, and characterization is virtually non-existent. Boring and predictable, this totally hits rock bottom when a montage set to the dull beats of an excruciatingly crappy German rap song shows Chiko rising to the top of the dope-dealing business, complete with loads of coke sniffing, money counting, drinking from champagne coolers in his own newly-opened restaurant and buying expensive jewelry for his girlfriend (the, sigh, hooker with a heart of gold he "bought" from her pimp) who promptly and happily flings herself into his arms when he shows her the penthouse apartment he got them. What made Faith Akin attach his name to this abysmal turkey remains his secret.

The first scenes of the movie are pretty authentic, but later everything gets a bit affected. Unfortunately the movie is made for the topic to high glossy. Especially the language doesn't match with the Hamburg "ASSI-DIGGA" Slang. Moritz Bleibtreu is like in "Free Rainer" disappointing and hasn't got his brilliance like in "Im Juli". Denis Moschitto acts for the figure Chiko to intelligent. Over all it is a well worth seeing movie with good dialogs and a good alternation to the Hollywood movies. I would rate the movie with a 6.8 – with a few more "DIGGA" it would have been a 7. The first scenes of the movie are pretty authentic, but later everything gets a bit affected. Unfortunately the movie is made for the topic to high glossy. Especially the language doesn't match with the Hamburg "ASSI-DIGGA" Slang. Moritz Bleibtreu is like in "Free Rainer" disappointing and hasn't got his brilliance like in "Im Juli". Denis Moschitto acts for the figure Chiko to intelligent. Over all it is a well worth seeing movie with good dialogs and a good alternation to the Hollywood movies. I would rate the movie with a 6.8 – with a few more "DIGGA" it would have been a 7.

The performances are very good, as is each scene taken by itself. The story is completely predictable, including the end, which I also found frankly unbelievable. The whole hodge-podge of conflicted feelings about ethic identity reminded me of "Once Were Warriors," which was about a violent Maori community in New Zealand. At least that movie acknowledged that the male craziness had a partial source in poverty and racism (without excusing it). Chiko doesn't admit much of anything about Germany - the early parts of the film are a kind of "rebels without a cause." At least for me, steeped in the race relations of English-speaking countries plus France, this film self-pathologized Turkish-German males and sensationalized their emotions in a way I didn't find very insightful. But on the level of production and acting, it was at least an 8.

Berlinale was full of surprises this year. The festival program was read through again and again, but still the selection of films was difficult like before, randomness was the easiest way, so my pre-made film list looked quite different at the end. In the Panorama section of the festival, I came across Özgür Yildirim's feature film debut Chiko, produced by Faith Akin. His name created an urge to see the film as I am deeply interested in the Transnational German Cinema.Özgür Yildirim is a young director from Hamburg. He tells a dark story about loyalty, friendship, rage, revenge, drugs, passion and alienation in a youth gang in Hamburg. The main character Isa Cakiroglu (Denis Moschitto) is called Chiko by his friend circle in Hamburg. This circle is made up of young people with migration background, speaking the famous sociolect. They like action, excitement, fame, expensive cars and especially power. Of course, money is the key in order to get the things they dream of. Money is power, money is respect.It is quite clear that Özgür Yildirim was inspired by films like Scarface, Goodfellas and Reservoir dogs. „Chiko" has a high tempo; it proceeds too quickly without characterization of figures and ends like other films of that genre. Furthermore, the film uses too many clichés about young immigrants, which the audience from this side of the world apparently enjoys.Still, Denis Moschitto fits very well with his own charm and masculinity; Volkan Özcan as the loser one and Reyhan Sahin are very promising as new faces. Moritz Bleibtreu is fascinating as usual.In the discussion after the premiere at the Berlinale; Özgür Yildirim, Volkan Özcan and some of the crew were on the stage to answer the questions. The director is a smart, enthusiastic, witty person. The overall reaction of the audience was positive; people enjoyed the funny dialogues. A person in the second row came up with the idea that violence in the film may cause more violence among the young people. The "violence" theme and especially violence among young people with migration background is quite popular nowadays. Do such films really have a negative effect on young people? The answer came from one of the back rows: These guys are not presented as heroes to be admired; why should anyone be bothered seeing such nice, hot guys on the screen? Public premiere tickets of Chiko at the Zoo Palast were sold out quickly and the film created a lot of excitement among the audience. To my mind, it is enough reason to go and see this film.