The film Head-On explores the dark side of the German-Turkish culture clash and how it plays out in the lives of two individuals living in Hamburg. Cahit is the son of Turkish immigrants living in Germany and does not have a strong connection with his Turkish roots. Yet, despite the fact that he lives like a German, dresses like a German, and speaks German, he is still discriminated against because of his Turkish heritage. Essentially, he has no clear-cut nationality, unable to identify fully with either culture. Unlike Cahit, Sibel is unable to break away from her Turkish roots. The film does not attempt to simplify the collision of cultures; instead, it presents the issue as ambiguous and open-ended. It offers no solution, only begs awareness and attempts to convey an internal struggle on film. Head-On is not only a depiction of the German-Turkish culture clash in German society, but also of the identity crises of the individuals who are both German and Turkish, and the internal collision that occurs—a collision that is universal in nature, and can pertain to many other countries as well as just Germany.
The film begins with Cahit, already on the path to self-destruction, drinking leftover beers in the bar where he works. His identity crisis, combined with his unstable emotional state after the death of his wife, culminates in his emotional breakdown. After drinking excessively and getting into a bar fight, he purposely crashes his car head-on into a cement building. He ends up in a hospital, where he meets the beautiful and suicidal Sibel. Ruled by her strict, conservative Turkish family, she is forbidden from having a German boyfriend. When she discovers that Cahit is Turkish, she asks him to marry her. Though Cahit and Sibel meet under depressing circumstances, both having attempted suicide, they find each other, each able to offer something the other wants. For Sibel, having a Turkish husband means she can finally be free of her oppressive family and sleep with all the German men she wants. For Cahit, a broken and lonely man, having Sibel as a roommate is a small comfort; she cleans, pays half the rent, cuts his hair and cooks for him.
Their arrangement seems to go well in the beginning, despite Cahit’s secretive and violent nature and Sibel’s frequent sexual encounters with strangers. But then Cahit finds himself falling in love with Sibel, and she with him. Just when it seems that they might get together, Cahit accidentally strikes and kills one of Sibel’s former lovers. He is imprisoned and Sibel must flee to Istanbul to escape the wrath of her family. She promises to wait for Cahit, but when she begins her new life in Istanbul, she finds herself in a different kind of prison. As she tries to numb the pain of being a foreigner in a strange country, she spirals down a self-destructive path not so different from Cahit’s at the beginning of the film.
Head-On, or Gegen die Wand in German, was released in both Germany and Turkey in 2004. It premiered in February of 2004 in Berlin. Fatih Akin, who directed and wrote the film, is a German citizen of Turkish descent, and often depicts multiculturalism and the German-Turkish dichotomy in his films. Head-On, his fourth feature, received twenty-three awards, including Best Film and Best Director at the European Film Awards. It also received a Goya award for Best European Film and Akin received a Golden Berlin Bear at the Berlin International Film Festival. The film, which stars Birol Ünel as Cahit and Sibel Kekilli as Sibel, was a hit in Germany, attracting audiences of both German and Turkish nationality.
The title of the film is not just an allusion to Cahit’s near-fatal car crash at the start of the film. It symbolizes a much larger collision, one that has been affecting Germany since the 1960s, between the Germans and the Turkish. What originally began as a plan to fuel Germany’s industry and workforce by hiring guest workers from developing countries resulted in a country divided by racism and prejudice. The guest workers brought their families and friends to Germany, setting up to live there permanently. Plagued by discrimination and poor treatment, guest workers and their families had to deal with constantly feeling unwelcome in Germany. To keep their culture alive, they continued to practice their religion and play their music, founding restaurants, clubs, and churches.
Like Fatih Akin, Head-On’s main characters Cahit and Sibel belong to the second generation of Turkish immigrants. Born in Germany, speaking German, going to German schools, practicing Christianity, and adopting German culture, most of this generation no longer considered themselves to be outsiders; instead, they were displaced, thinking of Germany as their home, but not really feeling at home there. Like most second-generation Turks, Sibel and Cahit, whether consciously or unconsciously, must constantly struggle with their identities, their dual nationalities. This goes beyond the more apparent issue of racism that is easier to pin down and address; it is a complicated internal struggle.
An important issue that is addressed in the film is the role of the Turkish woman in both mainstream German society and in the Turkish home. There are two representations of Turkish women in the film: Sibel, and her mother, Birsen. Sibel is desperate to break her ties with her Turkish side; she views herself as more German than Turkish, and despises the confines of her strict Turkish family. Each woman takes on a different role: Sibel is so determined not to end up like her mother that she goes to the other extreme, and Birsen has taken on the traditional role of Turkish housewife, characterized by a lifetime of quiet obedience, and submitting to the control of her oppressive husband and the demands of her family. Yet there is a strong bond between the women. Sibel doesn’t blame her mother for succumbing to the rigid Turkish lifestyle; and Birsen does not chastise Sibel for her rebellious ways. On some level, each has quietly accepted that she will never truly escape the confines of the patriarchal culture.
The scene in which Sibel’s family visits her in the mental hospital after she has attempted suicide depicts just how harshly the men in her family treat her and shows that the first priority of the conservative Turkish family is honor. In the scene, as Sibel and her mother sit silently with their heads bowed in submission, Sibel’s father reprimands Sibel: “The shame you have brought upon us is unforgivable.” After her father leaves the table, Sibel’s brother turns to her. “Can’t you see what you’re doing to him?” he says. “You’re killing him.” Not only does he ignore that fact that it is the father who is killing Sibel by driving her to suicide with his rigid rules, he also values a man’s life over a woman’s. Sibel does not say anything. Then, when the men have left, she leans back, lets down her hair, and lights up a cigarette with her mother. Throughout the film, Sibel is also terrified of her father and brother and believes they would kill her without hesitation if she did anything to shame the family name. Later in the film, after Cahit has been imprisoned for murder, Sibel’s father disowns her and begins burning photographs of her. Birsen attempts to stop him. This is possibly the first time she has ever tried to stand up to her husband. Sibel’s brother chases Sibel down, and Sibel must run for her life, since honor killings are common among Turkish families, even in Germany, especially when it comes to a woman’s sexual misbehavior. Akin exposes the hypocrisy of this when Cahit joins Sibel’s brother and his Turkish friends for a game of cards, and all the men talk about the various whore-houses they visit, the different women they sleep with. They’re all married, but no one will ever kill them for being unfaithful or shaming their families, for the simple reason that they are men.
Cahit, on the other hand, is much more of a mystery. Because we never see his family, we don’t know how he interacts with his Turkish side, except as he behaves around his Turkish friend Nico. Cahit is enigmatic, troubled, and divided, not only by his dual nationalities, but by his own self-destructive nature. Perhaps the first time we understand his relationship with his Turkish heritage is during the scene when he talks to the psychiatrist at the hospital. The psychiatrist asks him about his last name, Tomruk. Cahit tells him it’s Turkish, and the psychiatrist asks him what it means. Cahit doesn’t know and it is clear that he does not care. Later in the film, Cahit is at Sibel’s family’s house to ask her father for her hand in marriage. He is clearly uncomfortable and out-of-place in the Turkish home, unsure of how to behave. Sibel’s brother remarks to Cahit: “Your Turkish sucks. What did you do with it?” to which Cahit replies, with resentment and finality, “I threw it away.” Through this and other similar comments Cahit makes throughout the film, he implies that he has discarded his Turkish heritage without regret. Another aspect of Cahit’s troubled past is the death of his wife. We don’t find out that he is a widower until he and Sibel are being married, and when she asks him about it later, he either refuses to talk about it or becomes enraged. His violent, self-destructive nature seems to be a result of a deeply rooted insecurity about his identity. His character is significant in this film because, as an autobiographical representation of Akin, the complexities of his character speak to a vast majority of the Turkish population in Germany who share his mixed feelings about Turkey and Germany and aren’t sure where they fit in.
The characters never truly seem to be happy in the film. They are constantly trying to find an escape, whether it be drugs, alcohol, sex, dancing, or slitting wrists. Sibel and Cahit are both miserable, and though they find solace in being together, that momentary joy is ripped from them. Cahit’s suicide attempt at the beginning of the film is mirrored by Sibel’s near the end, when she provokes the men to stab her. This film is an excellent representation of the German-Turkish culture clash in Germany, but it also has universal themes. No country is free of racism and discrimination. No person has not experienced love and heartache. Head-On could be about another country or even another time. What is important is how the social divisions affect the individuals. The film itself is divided, full of oppositions and collisions of culture. Both German and Turkish are spoken; the soundtrack is half German, half Turkish. About half the film takes place in Hamburg, the other half in Istanbul. The acts of the film are separated by short musical interludes, depicting a Turkish band and a woman dancing and singing. The dichotomy of cultures manifests itself in a multitude of ways in the film. But while these are physical representations, easily identified by the viewer, there are more subtle collisions at work: the one that takes place on an internal level, one that brings both Cahit and Sibel to the breaking point.
Tags: Fatih Akin, German Film, Head-On