The movie structure of films such as “Crash” and “Babel” has become, sadly, something of a cliche in recent years: the multi-character design about lives criss-crossing in unexpected ways.
I say “sadly” because the structure has something to say about people and the way the simplest actions can have profound effects on others. However, a new film, “The Edge of Heaven,” revitalizes the concept and shakes the dust off the cliche.
The story would be impossible to briefly summarize, but here are some of the main characters: Nejat (Baki Davrat), a professor in Germany whose parents were Turkish; Ayten (Nurgul Yesilcay), a Turkish political activist looking for sanctuary in Germany; Lotte (Patrycia Ziolkowska), a trusting, loyal woman who falls for the firebrand Ayten; and Lotte’s mother, played by German film icon Hanna Schygulla.
We follow these people between Germany and Turkey and back, as an early death in the story triggers a series of life changes for the other characters. None of this feels heavy-handed, as “Crash” did, in part because director Fatih Akin takes such a calm, distanced approach to the events in question.
Yet the effect is powerful. By the time one character walks along the exact same city street that someone else did long before, you realize that Akin has created his design in almost subliminal ways.
Akin is the director of the sensational “Head-On,” a rough, brilliant romance that also looked at his own roots as a German of Turkish extraction. The sense of people being caught between cultures is one of the strong elements of “The Edge of Heaven,” but it’s not the only thread.
This movie will not become as well-known as “Crash” or “Babel,” because it doesn’t have recognizable movie stars, and also because — despite its overlapping events — it doesn’t neatly tie up everything. Akin has too much wisdom for that, and anyway, the movie is partly about accepting things as they come and not bending them to force a pattern. You might have to seek this movie out, in a theater or later on DVD, but … seek it out.
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