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.231“ lib/«UV. BATTLE FOR HAD
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llllAMA THE EDGE OF HEAVEN (15) 121 min 0000
With Goethe’s assertion that ‘We are our own devils; we drive ourselves out of our Edens’ ringing in his ears, the seriously gifted Turkish/German filmmaker Fatih Akin (Head-On, Crossing the Bridge) delivers something completely different in his new movie. Moving from Bremen in Germany to lstanbul and beyond, The Edge of Heaven is a multi-character tableau that delicately interconnects the stories of retired widower Ali (T uncel Kurtiz), Turkish prostitute Yeter (Nursel Kose), Ali’s professor son Nejat (Baki Davrak), Yeter's daughter Ayten (Nurgiil Yesilcay) and German student Lotte (Patrycia Ziolkowska). With an Altman-like touch, Akin (as both writer and director) slowly begins to paint an all too chilling portrait of the broken bond between Germany and their Ottoman friends in the south.
Like Haneke's Hidden, The Edge of Heaven is a film that deals in a currency of ill communication and violence. What initially seems like a nice chamber drama suddenly breaks into shocking violence as characters struggle to unburden what is really on their minds. This film is a huge step in maturity for Akin, whose last film, the wonderfully nihilistic love story Head-On sometimes felt like it was stapling the viewer to the floor with vicissitude. With its interwoven and haphazard threads The Edge of Heaven is probably most easily comparable with Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu’s flawed Babel. Unlike that film, however, Akin refuses to allow melodramatic contrivance to enter the frame, just ardour and atonement, despair and hope. And there’s even a brief appearance by Fassbinder’s favourite actress, the great Hanna Schygulla. Highly recommended. (Paul Dale)
I film/rouse. [drrthr/rgh. from [in 7 Mar.
DRAMA/ROMANCE DON’T TOUCH THE AXE (PG) 138min COO.
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Adapted from Balzac The Duchess of Langears, Jacques Rivette's latest film tells the tragic story of a French general Armand de Montriveau (Gurllaume Depardieu), back from a difficult trip in Africa, who falls for married Duchess Antoinette de Langeais (Jeanne Balibar). What might have been a flirtatious piece of fun between the two of them turns serious as, initially, Armand obsessively chases her. and after failing in his quest. threatens Antoinette wrth revenge by branding. He then disappears and the duchess becomes obsessed by the general in his absence. All the while SOCIetal expectation hangs over their heads. Rivette's style has often been, by conventional dramatic standards, underperformed and even stilted, but this is because Rivette is as interested in the awareness of form as he is in the specifics of content. As he moves from coquettish foreplay to moments of intense, vibrating passion, Rivette wants us to be moved but not overcome. He may be observing bi-polar passion and frigidity but his own interest in USIng medium long shots over close-ups (along with a detached plot structure) keeps the melodrama at arm's reach. Ditto a few odd touches. such as the sounds of gulls on the soundtrack (invoking Mallorca) while the characters are still in Paris. This great. now aged. New Wave filmmaker still knows how to keep an audience's interest without resorting to ready convention. His characters aren't qurte so lucky. (Tony McKibbin) I GFT. Glasgow, Fri 29 Feb—Mon 3 Mar.
28 Feb—13 Mar 2008 THE W49
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