Head-On

I saw this confronting 2004 drama at the German Film Festival as part of a retrospective of Fatih Akin films. Unfortunately, there was only one screening in Perth, there might be extra shows in other cities. Akin's a great stylist, authentic and functional, and his films are informed by his cultural standing as a German-Turkish writer/director.

In this film, a rough looking bloke called Cahit (Birol Ünel) smashes his car - head-on - into a wall after a heavy night on the turps. While getting treatment, he meets Sibel (Sibel Kekilli), a young woman who recognises his shared dual nationality status. She's looking for a 'Turkish' guy to marry, so her parents will get off her back. Initially sceptical and aggressively dismissive, Cahit realises Sibel is dangerously desperate, so he agrees to the sham marriage.

There's an early bump in the road when Cahit kicks Sibel out on their wedding night for asking about his dead wife. Soon enough though, things settle into a roommate situation, both of them carrying on their separate booze, sex and drug-fuelled lifestyles. As in most rom-coms with this kind of conceit (let's subtract the com here), the pair start to warm to each other, tilted more heavily on Cahit's side.

Cahit and Sibel display loads of self-destructive behaviour, for differing reasons, and it's a tough watch at times. Kekilli is brilliant in her first feature (she went on to play Tyrion Lannister's bed-warmer, Shae, in Game of Thrones). Ünel is also filthily superb, and I get the feeling that he may be slightly based on Akin himself (not the extreme parts, clearly).

There are some unsettling moments, no punches are pulled (family honour violence, rape, attempted suicide, attempted murder, a fair bit of blood) and it would probably come with a trigger warning if it were made these days. The performances are fantastic all round, notably the two great leads, but there's also sterling work from the supporting cast - Demir Gökgöl and Aysel Iscan as Sibel's father and mother; Meltem Cumbul as Sibel's supportive cousin; Güven Kiraç as Cahit's co-worker; and Catrin Striebeck as an occasional shag of Cahit's.

The area of St. Pauli in Hamburg has a real grungy feel that makes the time frame seem twenty years earlier than it is, so the eventual jump to Istanbul makes for an intriguing comparison. The change of scenery doesn't do much for Sibel's mindset, as she appears to absorb, and carry on Cahit's attempts at self-immolation. She does everything she can to end herself, and maybe she even succeeds, depending on your viewpoint.

To pick a nit, the film was a bit stretched, particularly in the final third (post key event), and the musical interludes on the Bosphorous or Golden Horn were an odd way to break up the narrative, not entirely successful, but quirky nonetheless. Regardless of these minor quibbles, this is a powerful, satisfying drama about disenfranchisement, grief and a search for belonging. Top drawer Akin.

Head-On was part of the German Film Festival - big thanks to the Luna for screening it.

See also:

The personality of the leads might have influenced Markus Goller for his alcoholic drama One for the Road (2023), also at GFF a couple of years back. There are more parallels in Jean-Jacques Beineix's iconic Betty Blue (1986).