Copyright by Berna Gueneli 2011

The Dissertation Committee for Berna Gueneli Certifies that this is the approved version of the following dissertation:

CHALLENGING EUROPEAN BORDERS: FATIH AKIN’S FILMIC VISIONS OF

Committee:

Sabine Hake, Supervisor

Katherine Arens

Philip Broadbent

Hans-Bernhard Moeller

Pascale Bos

Jennifer Fuller CHALLENGING EUROPEAN BORDERS: FATIH AKIN’S FILMIC VISIONS OF EUROPE

by

Berna Gueneli, B.A., M.A., M.A.

Dissertation Presented to the Faculty of the Graduate School of The University of Texas at Austin in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of

Doctor of Philosophy

The University of Texas at Austin May 2011

Dedication

For my parents Mustafa and Günay Güneli and my siblings Ali and Nur.

Acknowledgements

Scholarly work in general and the writing of a dissertation in particular can be an extremely solitary endeavor, yet, this dissertation could not have been written without the endless support of the many wonderful people I fortunate to have in my surroundings. First and foremost, I would like to thank my dissertation advisor Sabine Hake. This project could not have been realized without the wisdom, patience, support, and encouragement I received from her, or without the intellectual exchanges we have had throughout my graduate student life in general and during the dissertation writing process in particular. Furthermore, I would like to thank Philip Broadbent for discussing ideas for this project with me. I am grateful to him and to all my committee members for their thorough comments and helpful feedback. I would also like to extend my thanks to my many academic mentors here at the University of Texas who have continuously guided me throughout my intellectual journey in graduate school through inspiring scholarly questions, discussing ideas, and encouraging my intellectual quest within the field of Germanic and Media Studies. I thank in particular Katherine Arens, Janet Swaffar, Pascale Bos, and Jennifer Fuller for their academic mentorship and assistance. Awards and fellowships are one of the many other important factors that allowed for scholarly exchanges and the timely completion of my dissertation. Throughout my graduate studies the Department of Germanic Studies and the Graduate School at the University of Texas at Austin have generously recognized my work with fellowships and awards, including a 2009/2010 Continuing Fellowship. While the professional development awards allowed me to attend numerous national conferences to present my

v research, the Continuing Fellowship allowed me to indulge in my research and to concentrate on the writing process. One factor that made my graduate experience a sane one was the pleasant surroundings of friends and mentors. I am grateful to faculty members Per Urlaub, Werner Krauss, Matthias Rothe, Marc Pierce, Paola Bonifazio, and Stine Skou Nielsen for the many inspirational conversations, their refreshing humor, and the lasting friendship that I will always associate with my time here at the University of Texas at Austin. Most importantly, my graduate student life has been such a wonderful experience due to my friends, colleagues, and fellow graduate students here at UT and at other institutions. I thank them for the many stimulating discussions we have had and all their support throughout the years. Thanks for being my friends and supporters: Jan Uelzmann, Bradley Boovy, Mariana Ivanova, Rob Kohn, Ela Gezen, Adam Johnson, Daniel Greenfield, Martin Kley, and Lee Holt. I particularly thank my friends Bradley Boovy and Adam Johnson for proof reading parts of my dissertation. Finally, I also would like to extend my thanks to my family for continuously supporting my desire to study, travel, and explore the world. For it is the sum of all my previous intellectual journeys and adventures that directed me to the University of Texas at Austin to pursue my PhD.

vi Challenging European Borders: Fatih Akın’s Filmic Visions of Europe

Publication No.______

Berna Gueneli The University of Texas at Austin, 2011

Supervisor: Sabine Hake

In my dissertation, I discuss three of Akın’s feature : Im Juli (In July, 2000), Gegen die Wand (Head-On, 2004), and Auf der anderen Seite (The Edge of Heaven, 2007) in order to investigate Akın’s filmic visions of Europe. Through close textual readings, I analyze three aspects of his films in particular: the spatial conceptions of Europe (city- and landscapes), the sounds of Europe ( and languages) as well as the display of ethnic minorities and the changing urban demography in and Europe. I argue that Akın employs an “aesthetic of heterogeneity” to portray his filmic Europe as a diverse space, in which multiethnic and multilingual music, people, and sceneries are juxtaposed with regions that often have been perceived historically and politically as distinct and complicated. My first chapter discusses Akın’s conceptions and depictions of European Space in In July. By analyzing city- and landscapes, soundscapes, and dynamic spaces in In July, I argue that Akın provides a dynamic, fluctuating, and interconnected European space, including Eastern Europe and . In my second chapter, I scrutinize language use and dialogue in Head-On to map out the changing demographics in European urban vii spaces. Ultimately, I argue that Akın moves beyond Hamid Naficy’s theory of “accented cinema” by including accented languages and dialects for all protagonists, including Western Europeans. Through this linguistic polyphony, and a diversity of accents are depicted as integral elements of today’s Europe. In my final chapter, I discuss the sound of Europe as depicted in The Edge of Heaven. Looking particularly at music (and music lyrics) in the , I argue that Akın’s use of dubbed and remixed music (especially by the artist Shantel) underscores Akın’s filmic challenges to (national) European borders. By foregrounding the mixed styles of music, where an “original” becomes hard to decipher, the director shows, on an aural level, that blurring boundaries and multidirectional movement are the predominant components of today’s Europe.

viii Table of Contents

Introduction...... 1 Introduction to Project ...... 1 Fatih Akın and his Cinema...... 12 Akın Scholarship...... 12 Akın and the “New Europe” vs. “Fortress Europe”...... 16 Akın as European Filmmaker ...... 23 Akın and the Context of Turkish-German Cinema...... 29 Dissertation Questions ...... 44 Chapter Outline...... 45

Chapter One: Akın’s Spatial Conceptions and Depictions of Europe in In July .. 48 Introduction...... 48 Hungarian-Romanian Border: “Grenzhochzeit” (Border Wedding).. 51 Movement, City- and Landscapes, and Soundscapes ...... 57 Movement: Dynamic Spaces in Europe...... 57 City- and Landscapes: Visual Spaces in Europe...... 72 Soundscapes: Aural Spaces in Europe...... 87 Conclusion: Decentralized Europe?...... 92

Chapter Two: Language Use and Dialogue: Multilingualism in Akın’s Head-On...... 96 Introduction...... 96 Language Use in Head-On...... 100 Language and Belonging: Switching Codes – Switching Places...... 100 Language and Complications of National and Ethnic Categories .... 109 Language and the Extension of European Spaces: Hamburg- ...... 120 Conclusion ...... 127

Chapter Three: Soundscapes in The Edge of Heaven ...... 129 Introduction...... 129 ix The Sound of Music in The Edge of Heaven ...... 136 Akın and Shantel...... 136 Transition Scenes: Germany and Turkey...... 142 Turkey ...... 145 Germany...... 153 The Sound of Languages in The Edge of Heaven...... 161 Conclusion ...... 165

Conclusion ...... 169

Bibliography...... 176

Vita ...... 196

x Introduction

INTRODUCTION TO PROJECT

And the winner is: Fatih Akın. “The has just made its first major foray in the glamorous world of showbusiness [sic!] with the awarding of the very first Lux Prize for cinema. Turkish-German production Auf der anderen Seite (…) by Fatih Akın was chosen by MEPs (…),” states the culture sections of the European Parliament’s website in November 2007.1 The European Cinema Lux Prize was established in 2007 to annually award a film that addresses particular European issues. The 2007 EP President Hans-Gert Pöttering said about the first LUX Prize:

Today, we are experiencing a premiere: 50 years after the signing of the Treaty of , the European Parliament is awarding for the first time the newly created cinema prize ‘LUX.’ (…) With this prize we want to award annually a film that raises attention to current social questions that affect our continent and highlights especially. Furthermore, the award is supposed to highlight the richness of linguistic diversity within the and to support the artistic production of the cinema sector.2 As the recipient of this European cinema prize in 2007 for his Auf der anderen Seite (The Edge of Heaven), Akın and his production team received a trophy as well as distribution support for the film throughout Europe and beyond. In cooperation with the Goethe Institute, the EP provided the means for the subtitling of The Edge of Heaven into the 23 official languages of the European Union and into additional seven languages such as Arabic, Chinese, Indonesian, Japanese, Russian, Brazilian Portuguese, and Turkish as well as an adaptation for the hearing- and visually impaired. The subtitling is supposed to

1 “EP’s First Lux Prize goes to Turkish-German Co-Production,” European Parliament, November 8, 2007, accessed March 3, 2010, http://www.europarl.europa.eu/sides/getDoc.do?pubRef=-//EP//TEXT+IM- PRESS+20071107FCS12747+0+DOC+XML+V0//EN#title1.

2 “LUX 07 Cinema Prize”, October 24, 2007, accessed March 3, 2010, http://www.lux- prize.eu/lux07/index_en.htm. 1 help distribute films within Europe. In a promotional text entitled “Constructing Europe” on their current webpage, the EP states: “In a multilingual market, the original language of a film becomes an export barrier. Therein lies the heart of the problem of film distribution in Europe: overcome language barriers and create adequate conditions that will help films meet their public.”3 Akın’s The Edge of Heaven was the first film to be distributed across Europe and the globe with a disc that includes 30 different languages () to meet its “public.”4 This endeavor underscores both the attention that is given to film within the institutions of Europe, as well as the relevance that is attributed to this particular film and its director on a European scale. Film scholar Luisa Rivi states that and funding structures in combination with a new “freedom of movement” for EU citizens creates a new form of cosmopolitanism and promotes and mobilizes a “supranational audience” for film.5 The European Parliament as well as other European programs subsidize, fund, and promote European filmic production and thereby acknowledge the importance film has in the “cosmopolitan” imagining of and positive identification with today’s Europe through film.6 Thus, cinema is understood as a projection screen for

3 “LUX Film Prize: Home Page,” LUX Film Prize: The European Parliament Celebrates Cinema on 9 May: Home Page, accessed September 5, 2010, http://www.lux-prize.eu/.

4 “Latest News: Lux Caffe Debates ...,” LUX Film Prize: The European Parliament Celebrates Cinema on 9 May, November 9, 2009, accessed September 5, 2010, http://www.lux- prize.eu/news/news_091109_en.htm.

5 Luisa Rivi, European Cinema after 1989: Cultural Identity and Transnational Production (New York and Houndmills: Palgrave MacMillan, 2007), 36, 41, 60, 61.

6 According to Katrin Sieg, cinema’s “cultural and ideological importance” was recognized and subsidized early on with national funds. Today, in addition to regional and national film funds, the EU helps financing many European film productions. Sieg and Anne Jäckel explain that since the late 1980s and early 1990s, pan-European funding programs have supplemented governmental subsidies. MEDIA and EURIMAGE are two examples of European guidance and help programs for production, distribution, and exhibition of films across national boundaries. Katrin Sieg, Choreographing the Global in European Cinema and Theater 2 fantasies, visions, and utopias of Europe. Film becomes a place for negotiations for European identities and possibilities. Akın became a representative of European visionaries as the first recipient of the Lux Cinema prize. The Edge of Heaven and later films such as the 2009 Soul Kitchen received various other prestigious European film awards and recognitions, but Akın’s earlier films, such as his 1998 debut feature film Kurz und schmerzlos (Short Sharp Shock) and the 2004 Gegen die Wand (Head-On) as well as his 2005 music documentary Crossing the Bridge: The Sound of Istanbul, were already critically acclaimed, not just locally and nationally, but also in a European context.7 Despite the fact that most German film productions are viewed in a German context, Akın’s films are distributed in Europe and overseas. He has also been honored with special events such as the recent retrospectives in and .8 Akın inspired early on an international circle of audiences and critics with his films that seem to display distinct aesthetics of Europe.9 It

(New York: Palgrave MacMillan, 2008), 39, 40; Anne Jäckel, European Film Industries (: British Film Institute, 2003), 69-90; Mary P. Wood, Contemporary European Cinema (London: Hodder Arnold, 2007), 8-11.

7 Fatih Akın, Auf der anderen Seite, Drama (Pandora Film Verleih, 2008); Fatih Akın, Crossing the Bridge the Sound of Istanbul, Documentary (Strand Releasing Home Video, 2006); Fatih Akın, Head-On, Drama, Romance (Strand Releasing, 2005); Fatih Akın, In July, Adventure, Comdey, Romance (Koch Lorber Films, 2004); Fatih Akın, Soul Kitchen, Comdey (Pandora Film Verleih, 2009).

8 Aside from his film awards, Akın is also celebrated as a European auteur. In 2009, Akın had retrospectives in Moscow and in Gijón, Spain, where he was celebrated for his globalized, European cinema. “Junges Russland: Fatih Akin - Ein Regisseur der Globalisierung,” Stimme Russlands, April 24, 2009, accessed January 14, 2010, http://german.ruvr.ru/radio_broadcast/4001839/4001863.html; “48 FIC XiXÓn: Festival International de Cine de Gijón 19 - 28 Noviembre de 2009,” Gijon , 2009, accessed July 22, 2010, http://www.gijonfilmfestival.com/noticias.asp?idioma=3&idmenu=2&idnoticias=73.

9 The Edge of Heaven received, for example, the following prizes and nominations: “Europäisches Drehbuch 2007, Official German entry for the Oscar: Best Foreign Language Film 2007, PRIX LUX 2007, European Parliament, Best Director & Best Edit & Jury Special Recognition Award at Golden Orange Filmfestival Antalya 2007, PRIX de Cénario, Cannes 2007, Prix du Oecuménique, Cannes 2007, norddeutscher Filmpreis 2007, Grand Prize Lino Brocka Award 2007, Manila, Philippinen.” See official web pages for the films or film magazines for further lists of film prices: “Neuigkeiten: Soul Kitchen,” Soul 3 is precisely these aesthetic visualizations of Europe I would like to scrutinize in greater depth. My dissertation is conceived as a single-director study on Fatih Akın and his films. The project positions Akın as a filmmaker with “European sensibilities.”10 At the same time, I argue that Akın’s films challenge existing notions of Europe and things European, including notions of the “New Europe” and “Fortress Europe.”11 I will investigate three of Akın’s films: Im Juli (In July, 2000), Gegen die Wand (Head-On, 2005), and Auf der anderen Seite (The Edge of Heaven, 2007) to highlight Akın’s particular directorial style as well as his aesthetic and thematic concerns in a unified

Kitchen, accessed September 5, 2010, http://www.soul-kitchen-film.com/?r=1; “film-zeit.de: Portal über Filme & Filmleute vor und hinter der Kamera,” Text, December 1, 2008, accessed September 5, 2010, http://www.film-zeit.de/Film/12060/GEGEN-DIE-WAND/Preis/; “The Edge of Heaven: Official Homepage,” The Edge of Heaven: Official Webpage, accessed September 5, 2010, http://www.auf-der- anderen-seite.de/indexEN.html.

10 In the introduction to her book European Film Theory, Temenuga Trifonova discusses “European sensibilities” in European cinema. Trifonova argues that “European sensibilities” surface in various discourses on European cinema, although scholars do not seem to agree on what exactly the “European sensibilities” are. She quotes John Caughie, for example, who designates irony to be the main distinguishing characteristic of “European sensibilities.” Other scholars see a different range of characteristics such as: skepticism, ironic distance, nostalgia, and self-reflexivity, among other things, to be at the core of the “European sensibility” (Trifonova xiii-xiv). My analyses of Akın’s feature films hopes to help to sharpen the discourse on today’s “European sensibilities,” which still seems to be a Je ne sais quoi of the scholarship. Temenuga Trifonova, “Introduction,” in European Film Theory (London and New York: Routledge, 2009), xiii-xiv.

11 With “New Europe” I am referring to the expanding space of the post-cold war EU, and the ideas of a cosmopolitan and tolerant Europe as promoted by the EU. This “New Europe” is challenged by European (and global) realities of transnational migration from outside the geopolitical borders of Europe and by the encounter of difficulties entering the EU countries (entering “Fortress Europe”). I will discuss this tension between “New Europe” and “Fortress Europe” more in depth in the pages to come. For a discussion of the “New Europe” and “Fortress Europe” in European cinema and in contemporary discourses on things European see also: Yosefa Loshitzky, Screening Strangers: Migration and Diaspora in Contemporary European Cinema (Bloomington, Indiana: Indiana University Press, 2010); Andrew Brown, Dina Iordanova, and Leshu Torchin, Moving People, Moving Images: Cinema And Trafficking In the New Europe (St Andrews: St Andrews Film Studies, 2010); Fatima El-Tayeb, “‘The Birth of a European Public’: Migration, Postnationality, and Race in the Uniting of Europe,” American Quarterly 60, no. 3 (September 2008): 649-670.

4 Germany and unifying Europe. Film critics and scholars commonly celebrate Akın, arguably one of the most prominent directors in Germany and Europe today, as a new German auteur.12 I am interested in the actual thematic and aesthetic concerns of the filmmaker, which will be analyzed concretely, scrutinizing the films’ audio-visual, stylistic, and thematic arrangements.13 I argue that these filmic elements work together in producing a particular vision of Europe.14 I believe that one of the major components in Akın’s films is his subtle portrayal of a multiethnic, polyphonic, and multilocal Europe and Europeanness. This portrayal I call Akın’s aesthetics of heterogeneity.15 This

12 Akın is a critically acclaimed director, as the multiple national and international awards he received show. The scholarship on Akın often refers to him as an auteur, often referencing the German Autorenkino of the NGC. Akın is also a popular director as can be seen in the numbers of ticket sales in Germany and Turkey. For specific numbers of ticket sales or references to Akın as star/auteur director see, for example, Daniela Berghahn, “Introduction: Turkish-German Dialogue on Screen,” New Cinemas: Journal of Contemporary Film 7, no. 1 (2009): 144ff.; Daniela Berghahn, “No Place like Home? Or Impossible Homecomings in the Films of Fatih Akin,” New Cinemas: Journal of Contemporary Film 4, no. 3 (2006): 144ff.; Nezih Erdoğan, “Star Director as Symptom: Reflections on the Reception of Fatih Akin in the Turkish Media,” New Cinemas: Journal of Contemporary Film 7, no. 1 (2009): 27-38; Jaimey Fisher and Brad Prager, “Introduction,” in The Collapse of the Conventional: German Film and Its Politics at the Turn of the Twenty-First Century, ed. Jaimey Fisher and Brad Prager (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 2010), 15, 23ff.; Deniz Göktürk, “Mobilität und Stillstand im Weltkino digital,” in Kultur als Ereignis: Fatih Akıns Film “Auf der anderen Seite” als transkulturelle Narration, ed. Özkan Ezli (Bielefeld: Transcript, 2010), 15-45; Barbara Mennel, “Bruce Lee in Kreuzberg and Scarface in Altona: Transnational Auteurism and Ghettocentrism in Thomas Arslan’s Brothers and Sisters and Fatih Akin’s Short Sharp Shock,” New German Critique 87, no. Special Issue on Postwall Cinema (Autumn 2002): 133-156; Nicholas Kulish, “A Hand That Links Germans and Turks,” The New York Times, January 6, 2008, sec. Movies / Awards Season, accessed May 13, 2009, http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/06/movies/awardsseason/06kuli.html?_r=1&pagewanted=2.

13 These filmic elements include setting, soundtrack, casting, dialogue, and so forth.

14 As for the content of Akın’s films, I am not referring to a “real” Europe, but to a cinematic, an imaginary Europe that the director provides as a grid for his films. Formal and thematic analyses will help to investigate Akın’s cinematic Europe, which is constructed through particular audio, visual, and thematic elements. Other scholars such as Germanist Özkan Ezli have talked about Akın’s global cinema, seeing a global identity in his film, I am looking at the globalized “European” aspects in Akın’s films. Özkan Ezli, “Von der interkulturellen zur kulturellen Kompetenz. Fatih Akın’s globalisiertes Kino,” in Wider den Kulturenzwang. Migration, Kulturalisierung und Weltliteratur, ed. Özkan Ezli, Dorothee Kimmich, and Annette Werberger (Bielefeld: Transcript, 2009), 207-230.

15 I am not aware of the existence of this term (aesthetics of heterogeneity) in relation to a thematic and stylistic representation of a diverse Europe in film. The only two references to “aesthetics of heterogeneity” 5 interpretation of Europe goes against a myth of a historically “white,” homogenous, and monocultural idea of European nation-states that constitutes today’s EU.16 Certainly, Akın’s films are not explicitly about Europe or the EU, however, as I argue, in all of his films, Akın has a particular mise-en-scène and film sound, which make implicit statements about contemporary Europe, and thus engage in a contemporary debate about things “European” and “non-European.” In doing so, Akın subtly naturalizes multiethnicity, multilingualism, and polyphony as major components of contemporary Europe, which is linked to places outside of a geo-political Europe, such as Turkey. I investigate these components of Europe by discussing Akın’s visual and aural staging of people, places, and props. These discussions provide scene/sequence- and thematic analyses of Akın’s films. Through exemplary scene- and sequence analyses, I investigate in each chapter one of three major formal aspects of Akın’s films: mise-en- scène (space), dialogue (language use), and sound (music and languages). My thematic analyses then shed light on how these formal elements help to fundamentally challenge established concepts of Europe. My working definitions for both “European” space as well as things “European” in Akın’s films focuses on the interconnections of places, people, and material entities that I found were either related to contemporary Chinese art or to a filmic heterogeneity referencing the 1970s films of Chantal Ackerman. “Entry Gate: Chinese Aesthetics of Heterogeneity,” ShanghArtGallery.com, 2006, accessed March 11, 2011, http://www.shanghartgallery.com/galleryarchive/exhibition.htm?exbId=1130; Ivone Margulies, “Toward a Corporeal Cinema: Theatricality in the ’70s,” text, February 15, 2007, accessed March 11, 2011, http://www.mediaartnet.org/themes/art_and_cinematography/akerman/10/.

16 Deniz Göktürk, for example, talks about the myths of a homogenous society in Europe. Ethnic studies scholar Fatima El-Tayeb states that “the supposed ethnic homogeneity” of the historical Europe “is seen as an explanation for the persistent resistance to a multi-ethnic and multireligious conceptualization of” contemporary Europe. El-Tayeb, “‘The Birth of a European Public’: Migration, Postnationality, and Race in the Uniting of Europe,” 652, 653; Deniz Göktürk, “Migration und Kino- Subnationale Mitleidskultur oder Transnationale Rollenspiele?,” in Interkulturelle Literatur in Deutschland: ein Handbuch, ed. Carmine Chiellino (Stuttgart and Weimar: Metzler, 2000), 330.

6 beyond political and/or geographical borders and boundaries. I argue that Akın’s cinematic work challenges precisely these multiple existing borders and boundaries that ignore the existing networks and connections among people, places, and entities throughout Europe and beyond. Aspects of an interconnected Europe and Europeanness as displayed in Akın’s work, have generally been neglected in Turkish-German scholarship so far. As Akın is a German director with Turkish background, his biography (especially the Turkish-German aspect) has been most often taken as point of reference in the scholarship without being framed in the European context. After all, Akın says that growing up and being socialized in Turkey and Germany represents for him globalization per se.17 I believe that Akın’s Turkish-German background needs to be seen as an example for multilocal connections and possible, changing forms of belonging in today’s Europe. Turkish-Germanness becomes an example for diverse stories of Europeanness in a globalized world. This might explain why Akın highlights aspects of Turkish-Germanness in his films or his background, despite the fact that he refuses to be located in the Turkish-German niche of filmmaking. Akın’s biographical background is explicitly made available for the audiences and critics of his films.18 This is achieved either through his star persona, through gossip news, through interviews, online videos, or through the extra features material on the DVDs. Among other things, Germanist and film scholar Deniz Göktürk also refers to the

17 Akın’s interview with the newspaper Die Welt is quoted in the introduction to Fisher and Prager’s book on contemporary German cinema. Fisher and Prager, “Introduction,” 25.

18 In their introduction to their book The Collapse of the Conventional: German Film and Its Politics at the Turn of the Twenty-First Century, the editors Jaimey Fisher and Brad Prager also mention that Fatih Akın did not want to be reduced to a single ethnicity and that the director rejects being defined as a Turkish- German filmmaker. Ibid., 24.

7 possibilities that audiences have today watching films on DVD.19 Borrowing the term from Ann Everett, Göktürk talks about the “digitextuality” in Akın’s work, which ultimately help to create an open text. I, too, believe that it is particularly through voiceovers, documentaries, and interviews provided on the extra features on the DVD that such “digitextualities” are created. In Akın’s case, we are invited to a biographically influenced reading of his work. In these extra features or documentary films, Akın himself openly discusses different stages of the film production (casting, setting, pre- and post-production, etc.) as well as his own biographical involvement in the projects. These often include references to his family members or his professional or personal experiences with other people, places, and material entities relevant for the filmic product. Ultimately, through these interviews, the director stages the interrelations and connections of his biography and his films. Akın was born in 1973 to Turkish parents in Hamburg. He still lives in Hamburg today (in Ottensen), most of his films take place, at least partially, in Hamburg, and his production company Corazón International is also based there. Hamburg has an existential importance for Akın, as, most recently, his self-declared 2009 “dirty Heimatfilm” Soul Kitchen about a restaurant owner in Hamburg exemplifies.20 Through Akın’s filmic work (DVD features or documentaries), we are informed that in the 1960s,

19 Göktürk, “Mobilität und Stillstand im Weltkino digital.”

20 Soul Kitchen, which received the best screenplay award at the Northern German film festival, was called a “dirty Heimatfilm” and praised for its “authentic” depiction of Hamburg localities. The film’s web page as well as a film review in The New Yorker refer to the film as a new Heimatfilm. “52. Nordische Filmtage Lübeck,” 52. Nordische Filmtage Lübeck: 3. Nov.-7. Nov. 2010, 2010, accessed December 12, 2010, http://www.luebeck.de/filmtage/en/news/meldungen/20091108.html; “Soul Kitchen: Der Film,” Soul Kitchen, 2009, accessed December 2, 2010, http://www.soul-kitchen-film.com/?r=2; “Soul Kitchen: Presse”, September 14, 2009, accessed December 2, 2010, http://www.soul-kitchen-film.com/?r=17; Anthony Lane, “The Current Cinema: Slice and Dice,” The New Yorker, September 6, 2010, accessed December 2, 2010, http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/cinema/2010/09/06/100906crci_cinema_lane.

8 Akın’s father came as a guest worker to Germany and his mother, an elementary school teacher from Turkey, followed him. Shortly after, Fatih Akın and his brother Cem were born. They grew up in Hamburg-Altona, a multiethnic neighborhood in Hamburg. From the beginning, Akın’s life was marked by diversity. Growing up in Altona, he had multilingual friends from diverse backgrounds; he visited German schools and the university in Hamburg, but he also traveled to Turkey and other places. Akın’s biography is not tied to one place or one ethnicity. It promotes multilocal, multilingual, and multiethnic settings. Akın’s biography links him to places from Hamburg-Altona to Istanbul or to the Black Sea region in Turkey (which are birth places of his parents, and vacation places during his childhood), or to places even farther away such as Mexico, which he visited with his Mexican-German wife Monique Akın.21 Most of these links are also staged and referenced in Akın’s 2005 TV documentary about his family in Turkey and Germany Wir haben vergessen zurückzukehren (We Have Forgotten to Return) and in Monique Akın’s 2007 documentary Fatih Akın: Tagebuch eines Filmreisenden (Fatih Akın: Diary of a Film Traveler), which was shot during the production of The Edge of Heaven and is provided on the extra features of the DVD.22 Akın’s musical and filmic interests create further multidirectional links reaching outside of Hamburg. His musical interests grew and developed mainly in Hamburg’s

21 In an interview in the Paris Voice, Akın mentions a Mayan ring that he bought in Mexico during a trip with his wife. He talks about the ring’s importance to him. Such a Mayan ring also appears in his film In July, where it is a guiding talisman for Daniel. Karin Luisa Badt, “Fatih Akin ‘The Other Site of Heaven’,” parisvoice, accessed July 22, 2010, http://www.parisvoice.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=427&Itemid=31; Sina Gesell, “Ein gnadenloser Romantiker,” Nordbayerischer Kurier, May 24, 2010, accessed July 22, 2010, http://www.nordbayerischer-kurier.de/nachrichten/1290618/details_8.htm.

22 Fatih Akın, Denk ich an Deutschland: Fatih Akin “Wir haben vergessen zurückzukehren,” Documentary (Megaherz, 2001); Monique Akın, Fatih Akın - Tagebuch eines Filmreisenden, Documentary (Pandora Film Verleih, 2008).

9 vibrant music scene, and are influenced by reggae, funk, and soul, but are also inspired by Turkish musical traditions that he grew up with at home or experienced in Turkey.23 Akın’s higher education in film studies acquainted him with filmic traditions and innovations from the US, Turkey, Germany, and elsewhere.24 His (personal, academic, and professional) multiconnectedness to people, places, and artistic and material entities, which creates his personal space of experience, and therefore his personal space of Hamburg, Germany, or Europe, is overtly reflected in his films, too. Akın’s biographical interconnections influence and help construct his filmic space of Europe. It might be due to these diverse, profound connections, within and beyond Turkey and Germany, that Akın is labeled “one of the most outstanding European filmmakers from the last decade” as well as the most European of the German directors.25 Generally, Akın’s cinematic Europe, similar to his biography, features a connected and expanding European space with blurring boundaries. This interconnectedness of a formerly divided European East/West and North/South is reflected through the aesthetics of his films. Akın’s cinematic space depicts local sights

23 In a sueddeutsche.de interview with Rainer Gansera, Akın talks about his musical tastes and inspirations, as well as his DJ experience. See also a radiobroadcast published online for details on Akın’s music. Rainer Gansera, “Im Interview: Fatih Akin: ‘Meine Eltern hatten Angst, dass ich schwul werden könnte.’,” sueddeutsche.de, June 8, 2005, accessed September 5, 2010, http://www.sueddeutsche.de/kultur/im-interview-fatih-akin-meine-eltern-hatten-angst-dass-ich-schwul- werden-koennte-1.435606; “Junges Russland: Fatih Akin - Ein Regisseur der Globalisierung.”

24 An interview in the New York Times and a portrait in the Nordbayerischer Kurier, for example, display Akın’s connection to international directors and auteurs. Kulish, “A Hand That Links Germans and Turks.”; Gesell, “Ein gnadenloser Romantiker.”

25 The webpage for the 2009 film festival in Gijón, Spain states that Akın is “one of the most outstanding directors in Europe.” The film festival organized “a retrospective dedicated to Fatih Akın” and included an interview with Akın as a special guest at the festival. The city web page hamburg.de, on the other hand, celebrates Akın as the most European German director who has a particular filmic style in portraying Hamburg. “48 FIC XiXÓn: Festival International de Cine de Gijón 19 - 28 Noviembre de 2009.”; “Akin, Fatih,” hamburg.de, accessed July 22, 2010, http://www.hamburg.de/magazin/8204/hamburg-von-a-d.html. 10 and sounds in Hamburg, Budapest, Istanbul, and Trabzon that are informed by an interrelational, dynamic heterogeneity. For example, by juxtaposing the sounds of global electronic music with local Black Sea music from northeastern Turkey or Hamburg-based Brazilian-German reggae bands with voices of Islamic religious prayers in his films, the soundscapes of Europe reflect a vast and complex polyphony, which is often excluded from other depictions of Europe. Languages, dialects, and accents such as German, English, Turkish, and Serbo-Croatian as well as Hamburgisch, Bavarian, Istanbul and Black Sea dialects further enrich the heterogeneous and diversified sounds of Europe. Akın’s films become a projection screen for networks of European city-, land-, and soundscapes that are informed by links to places such as Turkey, Eastern Europe as well as South America. This interconnectedness is best symbolized through various figures of travelers and their interactions with each other throughout Europe. Given the expansion of the European Union and its insistent self-promotion in recent years, it becomes particularly important for our understanding of filmic expressions of Europeanness to explore Akın’s visions and depictions of Turkey and Germany.26 These must be considered in the larger context of Europe and can be examined through filmic representations of European space and sound.

26 The EU, since its conception in 1992, but already in the wake of earlier European treaties, has been eager to convey a European sense of unity. Examples of self-promotion and the creation of European identity would be the implementation of European symbols. These include the European flag, the European anthem (Beethoven’s 9th symphony), the day of Europe (May 9th) as well as the common European currency (the Euro). Various monetary aids and scholarships for professionals, students, and academics to travel around Europe and to learn about various European languages and cultures qualify as other means of promoting Europeanness. For further details, see the official homepage of the European Union. “Europa: Gateway to the European Union,” accessed January 30, 2009, http://europa.eu/index_en.htm; “Europa: The Symbols of the EU,” accessed June 22, 2009, http://europa.eu/abc/symbols/index_en.htm.

11 FATIH AKıN AND HIS CINEMA

Akın Scholarship

My dissertation will primarily analyze aural and visual constructions of Europe in Akın’s cinematic oeuvre. Both are questions that have not been discussed in-depth by the Akın scholarship so far.27 Most of the scholarly work on Akın consists of shorter studies, such as articles, book chapter sections, or article sections. While there are a few M.A. theses from German and US institutions, there is no in-depth study on Akın and his work28 aside from two unpublished dissertations from Queensland, Australia and Ann Arbor, Michigan, which dedicate chapter sections to Akın.29 Özkan Ezli’s 2010 essay

27 In her recent work, Göktürk discusses musical elements in Head-On and The Edge of Heaven. Barbara Kosta discusses musical elements in Akın’s music documentary Crossing the Bridge. Neither of the authors discusses sound in relation to European soundscapes or spatial constructions of Europe. Deniz Göktürk, “Sound Bridges: Transnational Mobility as Ironic Drama,” in Shifting Landscapes: Film and Media in European Context, ed. Miyase Christensen and Nezih Erdoğan (Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2008), 153-171; Göktürk, “Mobilität und Stillstand im Weltkino digital.”; Barbara Kosta, “Transnational Space and Music: Fatih Akın’s Crossing the Bridge: The Sound of Istanbul (2005),” in Spatial Turns: Space, Place, and Mobility in German Literary and Visual Culture, ed. Jaimey Fisher and Barbara Mennel (Amsterdam and New York: Rodopi, 2010), 343-360.

28 Demuth wrote her 2004 M.A. thesis at the University of Hamburg and Johnson’s M.A. thesis was written in 2006 at Bowling Green State University. Both theses are rare examples of longer studies on Fatih Akın. Schäffer’s as well as Mackhut’s German M.A. theses was published in 2007. Both provide chapter sections with film analysis on Akın’s films. Ann-Kristin Demuth, “Das Problem der kulturellen Identität in den Filmen des deutsch-türkischen Regisseurs Fatih Akin” (Master thesis, Universität Hamburg, 2004); Courtney E. Johnson, “From Essentialism to Hybridity: Fatih Akin’s Gegen die Wand as Portrayal of Second-Generation Turks in Germany” (Master thesis, Bowling Green State University, 2006), accessed January 10, 2009. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num; Margret Mackuth, Es geht um Freiheit. Interkulturelle Motive in den Spielfilmen Fatih Akins, 1st ed. (Saarbrücken: VDM Verlag Dr. Müller, 2007); Diana Schäffler, Deutscher Film mit türkischer Seele (Saarbrücken: VDM Verlag Dr. Müller, 2007).

29 Jessica Gallagher’s 2008 dissertation explores contemporary Turkish-German cinema and dedicates chapter sections to Akın’s films. Adile Esen’s 2009 dissertation discusses and reads Turkish-German identities in literature and film, for example in Akın’s Head-On and The Edge of Heaven. A thorough analysis of Akın’s films is not provided. For further details, please see: Adile Esen, “Beyond ‘In-Between,’ Travels and Transformations in Contemporary Turkish-German Literature and Film” (PhD diss., The University of Michigan, 2009); Jessica Gallagher, “Der neue deutsche Film ist türkisch: Issues of Space, Identity and Stereotypes in Contemporary Turkish-German Cinema” (PhD diss., The University of Queensland, 2008).

12 collection Kultur als Ereignis: Fatih Akıns Film Auf der anderen Seite als transkulturelle Narration (Culture as Event: Fatih Akın’s Film The Edge of Heaven as Transcultural Narration) poses a rare example of a book project dedicated to the study of one of Akın’s films from an interdisciplinary angle.30 Ezli’s anthology is a refreshing shift in the scholarship, considering that prior research on Akın has often been related to studies on ethnicity, diaspora, and “foreigner” culture and life in Germany and Europe. In the majority of the Akın scholarship, I discovered three major guiding principles. First, Akın’s films are read in relation to other Turkish-German films, displaying some sort of genealogy and development within Turkish-German cinema.31 Second, they are read against other ethnic and diasporic films within a German or European context.32 Third, in a social realist fashion, Akın’s work is read against the backdrop of race and ethnicity problems or issues within Germany. This

30 Scholars from different fields such as sociology, German and American Germanic studies, film studies as well one film critic and a literary author tackle Akın’s film The Edge of Heaven from various perspectives often focusing on globalization’s impact on the film. Özkan Ezli, ed., Kultur als Ereignis: Fatih Akın’s Film “Auf der anderen Seite” als transkulturelle Narration (Bielefeld: Transcript, 2010).

31 Deniz Göktürk works this way in her early articles on Akın. She elaborates, for example, on the development of Turkish-German film in general in her online article “German Fright-Turkish Delight: Migrant identities in Transnational Cinema” and in her 2006 article “Beyond Paternalism: Turkish German Traffic in Cinema.”

32 With her studies on transnational cinema in Europe, Daniela Berghahn is a prominent example of this kind of reading. She reads Akın as an example for transnational filmmakers from Germany and compares him to British, French and other German transnational directors. Her talk “Citizens of Two Worlds: Hybrid Identity Formation in Diasporic Coming-of-Age Films” is a good example of this reading. Gerd Gemünden, on the one hand, talks about minority cinema in Germany, but, on the other hand, also focuses on Hollywood’s impact on directors such as Akın and Angelica Maccarone and provides an original reading of Akın’s Short Sharp Shock. Through his article, Gemünden offers interesting insights about German-American filmic relationships in the 1990s. Daniela Berghahn, Citizens of Two Worlds: Hybrid Identity Formation in Diasporic Coming-of-Age Films, Lecture Series on Cinema and Citizenship convened by Professor Mandy Merck, accessed April 5, 2009, http://backdoorbroadcasting.net/2009/03/dr- daniela-berghahn-citizens-of-two-worlds-hybrid-identity-formation-in-diasporic-coming-of-age-films/; Gerd Gemünden, “Hollywood in Altona: Minority Cinema and the Transnational Imagination,” in German Pop Culture: How “American” is it?, ed. Agnes C. Mueller (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2004), 180-190.

13 approach compares Akın’s films to the social situation and history of Turkish-German migration and the particularities of their lives.33 Whereas these three approaches are valid and justified, they leave out important aspects of Akın’s films, such as his formal and stylistic accomplishments and his general artistic merit in the context of contemporary German and European Cinema. A comparable criticism on the social realist reading of minority artistic production has been voiced prior to cinema scholarship, in the field of literature, most prominently by scholars such as Leslie A. Adelson and Azade Seyhan.34 In their more recent scholarly work, Ezli, Göktürk, Daniela Berghahn, and David Gramling have all taken a more productive course in focusing on theoretical, musical, genre-typical, and linguistic particularities. Göktürk’s 2008 “Sound Bridges and Travelling Tunes” and “Sound Bridges: Transnational Mobility as Ironic Drama,” for example, take up music and sound specificities in Gegen die Wand and Crossing the

33 Rob Burns’s cultural studies approach of Akın is informed by a social-realist reading of Turkish- German film. His 2006 book chapter “Turkish-German Cinema: From Cultural Resistance to Transnational Cinema?” gives insights about Turkish-German cinema since its beginning in the 1970s to the contemporary experimentations of the younger generation of Turkish-German directors, including Akın. Various other scholars, such as Arne Koch and Stan Jones, follow this approach. Rob Burns, “Turkish- German Cinema: From Cultural Resistance to Transnational Cinema?,” in German Cinema: Since Unification (London: Continuum, 2006), 127-149; Arne Koch, “Onscreen/Offscreen: Fatih Akin’s Head- On Collision with German Cinema,” Glossen 26 (2007), accessed June 15, 2009, http://www.dickinson.edu/glossen/heft26/article26/koch.html.

34 Germanists provided similar discussions about Turkish-German or minority literature. Germanist Leslie A. Adelson, for example, has criticized the long-held concept of “in-between” in a so-called minority literature and has opted for a more artistic appreciation of minority literature with the introduction of her critical concept of “touching tales.” For an aesthetic reading of Emine Sevgi Özdamar’s language use see, for example, Azade Seyhan’s work. For older examples of discussions of Turkish-German literature since the 1980s and 1990s, see the anthologies of Irmgard Ackermann, Carmine Chiellino, and Eva Kolinsky. Leslie A. Adelson, The Turkish Turn in Contemporary German Literature: Toward a New Critical Grammar of Migration (New York: Palgrave MacMillan, 2005); Irmgard Ackermann and Harald Weinrich, eds., Eine Nicht Nur Deutsche Literatur: zur Standortbestimmung der “Ausländerliteratur” (München: Piper, 1986); Carmine Chiellino, ed., Interkulturelle Literatur in Deutschland: Ein Handbuch (Stuttgart and Weimar: Metzler, 2000); Eva Kolinsky, Deutsch und türkisch leben (Bern: Peter Lang, 2000); Azade Seyhan, “Lost in Translation: Re-Membering the Mother Tongue in Emine Sevgi Özdamar’s Das Leben ist eine Karawanserei,” The German Quarterly 69, no. 4 (1996): 414-426.

14 Bridge. Similarly, Berghahn’s 2006 article “No Place like Home? Or Impossible Homecomings in the Films of Fatih Akin” explores the Heimat concept and reads Akın’s films through the perspective of a specifically German genre and concept. Gramling’s 2010 article “On the Other Side of Monolingualism: Fatih Akın’s Linguistic Turn” discusses the shifts in Akın’s work from a linguistic point of view.35 While these scholarly contributions shed light on an unexplored side of Akın’s filmmaking, these articles and book chapters can only offer a starting point. With my dissertation, I hope to provide an in-depth textual analysis of Akın’s films that will add to and enrich the existing scholarship and bring new insights on particular filmic styles of the new German filmmaker in a European context. I bring Akın’s work into the field of European studies by exploring Akın’s visions of Europe, which simultaneously depict and undermine concepts of the cosmopolitan and open- border “New Europe” as well as of the more critical concept of the “Fortress Europe.” Akın, thereby, creates visions of Europe that allow for a critical portrayal of the continent. Without displaying an apocalyptic scenario of illegal migration and the miseries of human trafficking, Akın shows the difficulties experienced by individuals who do not have a “Schengen” freedom of movement.36 At the same time, Akın invites the audience to see the possibilities of a borderless and flexible space of Europe, which is traversable and creates a cosmopolitan space for its citizenry, with links to multiple places and people outside a geo-political Europe in a globalized world.

35 Göktürk, “Sound Bridges: Transnational Mobility as Ironic Drama.”; Berghahn, “No Place like Home? Or Impossible Homecomings in the Films of Fatih Akin.”; David Gramling, “On the Other Side of Monolingualism: Fatih Akın’s Linguistic Turn,” The German Quarterly 83, no. 3 (2010): 353-372.

36 “Das Schengener Übereinkommen und Schengener Durchführungsübereinkommen,” Auswärtiges Amt, December 11, 2008, accessed January 30, 2009, http://www.auswaertiges- amt.de/diplo/de/WillkommeninD/EinreiseUndAufenthalt/Schengen.html#t1. 15 Akın and the “New Europe” vs. “Fortress Europe”

How does Akın construct this imaginary, filmic Europe? What does it represent? How is it represented? As stated above, I hope to show in my analyses that Akın’s filmic Europe neither complies completely with critical ideas of a “New Europe” nor of a “Fortress Europe.” In his films about individual figures and their emotional and physical journeys, he does not draw a Europe that has clear boundaries or fits a prescriptive format. However, Akın employs and undermines images and iconographies of various existing notions of Europe, which also include national paradigms such as borders, political or cultural boundaries, but also transnational networks that reach beyond borders. Most recent scholarship on Akın (exemplified in the German essay collection on The Edge of Heaven) positions Akın in a global or transnational cinema context. Göktürk, for example, reads The Edge of Heaven in the context of European cinema of transnational mobility, film scholar Barbara Mennel and Germanist Özkan Ezli focus on impacts of globalization on the film, and sociologist Levent Tezcan acknowledges that the film is often read in a global cinema context because it does not fit well into the dichotomy of Turkish/German or Migration/Heimat.37 By predominantly using Turkish, German, or Turkish-German characters in his films, Akın touches, at first sight, upon a particularly Turkish-German history and culture, which often lures scholarship to focus on the themes of Turkish/German

37 Özkan Ezli, “Von Lücken, Grenzen und Räumen: Übersetzungsverhältnisse in Alejandro Gonzáles Iñarritus ‘Babel’ und Fatih Akıns ‘Auf der anderen Seite’,” in Kultur als Ereignis: Fatih Akıns Film “Auf der anderen Seite” als transkulturelle Narration (Bielefeld: Transcript, 2010), 71; Göktürk, “Mobilität und Stillstand im Weltkino digital,” 16; Barbara Mennel, “Überkreuzungen in globaler Zeit und globalem Raum in Fatih Akıns “Auf der anderen Seite,” in Kultur als Ereignis: Fatih Akıns Film “Auf der anderen Seite” als transkulturelle Narration (Bielefeld: Transcript, 2010), 96ff.; Levent Tezcan, “Der Tod Diesseits von Kultur- Wie Fatih Akın den Großen Kulturdialog umgeht,” in Kultur als Ereignis: Fatih Akıns Film “Auf der Anderen Seite” als transkulturelle Narration (Bielefeld: Transcript, 2010), 58.

16 relations.38 Yet, as I believe, his Turkish-German individuals become examples of European possibilities of movement, migration, and self-discovery in a contemporary, transnational European space. The figures do not fit stereotypical national categories such as “Turkish” or “German.” In The Edge of Heaven, for example, national categories as well as cultural identities cannot be understood as fixed entities, but rather as unfinished, multiple, overlapping, and shifting processes.39 With their individualities and particularities, the protagonists become actors in a larger European framework; they become polyphonic, multiethnic, mobile European citizens, with whom audiences in Spain as well as in Russia can identify. Ultimately, through these individual, cosmopolitan characters, as well as polyphonic soundscapes and diverse landscapes in his films, Akın subtly engages in the filmic construction of his Europe.40 Sociologist Gerard Delanty states “Europe as such does not exist.”41 Discussing “cultures” and “people” in flux, anthropologists Akhil Gupta and James Ferguson

38 Tezcan states that scholarship on Head-On was often framed within the discourse on migration and identity. He argues that such a cultural reading leaves out the existential interpersonal relationships, which are central to the film. Ezli stresses in his discussions on Head-On that the figures represent individuals and not a certain group of people such as “Turkish” or “Turkish-German.” This representational character of filmic figures was prominent in the 1970s and 80s (e.g. in Tevfik Başer’s films). Özkan Ezli, “Von der Identität zur Individuation: Gegen die Wand - eine Problematisierung kultureller Identitätszuschreibungen,” in Konfliktfeld Islam in Europa, ed. Monika Wohlrab-Sahr and Levent Tezcan (Baden-Baden: Nomos, 2007), 283-301; Ezli, “Von der interkulturellen zur kulturellen Kompetenz. Fatih Akın’s globalisiertes Kino,” 215; Tezcan, “Der Tod Diesseits von Kultur- Wie Fatih Akın den Großen Kulturdialog umgeht,” 58.

39 See also Tezcan’s discussion of The Edge of Heaven for his criticism on the “dialogue of cultures” (“Dialog der Kulturen”). Tezcan, “Der Tod Diesseits von Kultur- Wie Fatih Akın den Großen Kulturdialog umgeht.”

40 Ezli briefly mentions that places and entities also become protagonist in The Edge of Heaven. Ezli, “Von der interkulturellen zur kulturellen Kompetenz. Fatih Akın’s globalisiertes Kino,” 223.

41 According to Delanty, “Europe” as well as the “European” are discursive phenomena, constructions, which change over time and space. See also Elsaesser and Fowler: Gerard Delanty, “What does it mean to be a ‘European’?,” Innovation 18, no. 1 (2005): 1; Thomas Elsaesser, “Real Location, Fantasy Space, Performative Place,” in European Film Theory, ed. Temenuga Trifonova (New York and London: 17 acknowledge shifting borders and intermingling cultures, and add that cultures and people are not necessarily “identifiable spots on a map.”42 Yet, there are existing realities of multiple competing narratives about Europe. “Europe” as a geo-political and historical entity has evolved through multiple centuries and the space it has occupied often changed.43 With reference to the fairly recent development of nation-states, Thomas Elsaesser states that “there is no-one in Europe who is not diasporic or displaced.”44 Certainly, Akın’s films with various travelers, deportees, and migrants could be seen as a visualization of Elsaesser’s statement of diasporic and displaced Europeans. Akın merges various concepts of Europe in his films. Following film scholar Catherine Fowler, I would like to list three major categories that identify versions of Europe, variations of which appear simultaneously in Akın’s films. Fowler differentiates, for example, between “popular Europe,” “historical Europe,” and “EU-Europe.” “Popular Europe” is the category that refers to events such as the UEFA and the Eurovision song contest, which have differing participating countries and occupy a different European space.45 “Historical Europe,” as Fowler states, is often embedded in the heritage of the

Routledge, 2009), 48; Catherine Fowler, “Introduction,” in The European Cinema Reader (London and New York: Routledge, 2002), 1.

42 Akhil Gupta and James Ferguson, “Beyond ‘Culture’: Space, Identity, and the Politics of Difference,” in The Cultural Geography Reader (Hoboken: Routledge, 2008), 64, 65.

43 Media scholar Thomas Elsaesser, for example, talks about the geographical reach of Europe from the Mediterranean to the Urals and about its historical boundaries. Elsaesser stresses that Europe has always been “a continent settled and traversed by very disparate and mostly feuding ethnic entities.” Elsaesser, “Real Location, Fantasy Space, Performative Place,” 48.

44 He states that nation-states “are [often] the result of forcibly tethering together a patchwork quilt of tribes, clans, of culturally and linguistically distinct groupings,” Ibid.

45 For example, the current UEFA soccer championship “UEFA Europa League” includes nation-states, which are not part of the EU. 2009 UEFA general secretary David Taylor has exclaimed that this “brand- new UEFA Europa league” is a new “European adventure,” which includes in 2009 non-EU member-states such as and . Furthermore, the UEFA is associated with countries such as Turkey, Russia, 18 “Judeo-Christian religion, Roman law, Greek ideas on politics, philosophy, art and science, refracted through the Renaissance and the Enlightenment.”46 Ultimately, “EU- Europe” currently includes 27 member-states, and is open to candidate states such as Turkey that might join at a future point in time.47 Akın’s films could be placed at the nexus of these three categories. In Akın’s films, Turkey is a part of the cinematic Europe in terms of music, languages, characters, settings, and so forth. Furthermore, his films engage with the European Union by referencing both the possible EU membership of Turkey and its rejection.48 At the same time, his films give a glimpse at Islamic traditions, Judeo-Christian religious stories of Abraham, or references to the intellectual heritage of Europe with brief allusions to Goethe and Bach through its characters, places, and sounds. Thereby, existing European categories are connected to Turkey or to characters with a Turkish-German background.

and Israel, among many others, which are traditionally not included in a geo-political Europe. Similarly, divergent inclusions of nation-states that are outside of the traditional borders of Europe, or the EU, can be observed in the Eurovision song-contest. This multilateral song contest has been established in 1956 and has been performed annually with increasing numbers of participating countries. In 2008, for example, 43 countries participated in the competition, which included next to long-time participants like Israel, Russia, and Turkey also newcomer country Azerbaijan. Fur further information, please see: “Eurovision Song Contest,” Eurovision: Song Contest Moscow 2009, accessed June 22, 2009, http://www.eurovision.tv/page/history/thestory; “UEFA EUROPA LEAGUE,” UEFA.com, accessed June 22, 2009, http://www.uefa.com/competitions/UefaCup/index.html.

46 Historically, there have been different criteria for accepting places as parts of Europe. Fowler reminds us that Europe has been traditionally divided between the “North-South” (Christian vs. Islam; white vs. non-white) and “East-West” (democratic vs. totalitarian, communist) lines. Fowler recognizes the difficulties that such lines and divisions create for film studies, especially the Eastern divide (which has fundamentally changed after 1989). For further discussions, please see: Fowler, “Introduction,” 2.

47 “Europa: European Countries: The EU at a Glance,” Europa: European Countries, accessed December 9, 2009, http://europa.eu/abc/european_countries/eu_members//index_en.htm.

48 Ayten in The Edge of Heaven rejects the idea that Turkey should become a member of the EU. See chapter three for a more detailed discussion of The Edge of Heaven.

19 Ultimately, it is Akın’s display of Turkey as part of Europe that is opposed to conservative ideas about cultural and political borders between the “Occident” and the “Orient.” While “popular Europe” has included Turkey for a long time, in political discourse it has been kept at a distance for at least equally long. Contrary to Akın’s films, in the EU as well as in conservative political discourse, Turkey is not part of Europe. It is seen, at best, as a country with an ambiguous relationship to Western Europe.49 By including Turkey as a “candidate country,” the European Union is, to a certain extent, reconstructing and reshaping “Europe.” Yet, Turkey remains a country that has been seen as the “Other” of West European countries.50 It is particularly this idea – Turkey as part of Europe – that has been heatedly countered by politicians and journalists who oppose the European Union membership of Turkey.51 Current French President Nicolas Sarkozy has made his stance clear in a 2007 statement,

… Europe must give itself borders, that not all countries have a vocation to become members of Europe, beginning with Turkey which has no place inside the European Union. (…) Enlarging Europe with no limits risks destroying European political union, and that I do not accept.52

49 El-Tayeb states, for example, that Turkey often represents what Europe is not. El-Tayeb, “‘The Birth of a European Public’: Migration, Postnationality, and Race in the Uniting of Europe,” 659.

50 Thilo Sarrazin (former German banker and SPD member) is the most recent public figure who has vigorously expressed his racist ideas about the Muslim and in Germany. For other examples see also references in: Leslie A. Adelson, “Opposing Oppositions: Turkish-German Questions in Contemporary German Studies,” German Studies Review 17, no. 2 (May 1994): 309; Theo Sommer, “Endet Europa am Bosporus’ – Seite 3 | Titelseite | ZEIT ONLINE,” Zeit Online, April 3, 1992, accessed January 10, 2010, http://www.zeit.de/1992/15/Endet-Europa-am-Bosporus?page=3; Thilo Sarrazin, Deutschland schafft sich ab. Wie wir unser Land aufs Spiel setzen (München: Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, 2010).

51 According to a poll by the newspaper Die Welt, others who reject Turkey’s EU membership are the elderly and supporters of the CDU and CSU. “69 Prozent sind gegen den EU-Beitritt der Türkei,” Welt Online, accessed October 9, 2010, http://www.welt.de/politik/deutschland/article10168942/69-Prozent- sind-gegen-den-EU-Beitritt-der-Tuerkei.html.

52 “TurkishPress.com,” TurkishPress.com, January 15, 2007, accessed December 9, 2009, http://www.turkishpress.com/news.asp?id=159133. 20 With essentialist generalizations, former German chancellor and Die Zeit contributor Helmut Schmidt announced similar sentiments about Turkey’s possible EU entry:

We Europeans are strongly influenced by our culture, which is grounded on the Judeo-Christian tradition. The Turks, mainly part of a Muslim nation, belong to a very different cultural sphere, whose home is in Asia and Africa, but not in Europe.53

Fellow Die Zeit journalist Theo Sommer has written critically about the EU membership of Turkey, “If the Turks want to become a part of the European community, they have to get rid of anything that is Asian.”54 These public statements are embedded in a discourse of “culture clash,” which assumes the existence of intrinsically different and mutually exclusive cultures. In its most extreme form, these types of statements merge “Turkish,” “Islamic,” and “Asian” cultures that are understood as essentially different from “German,” “Christian,” or “European” cultures. The dissemination of these views on cultures results in a fixture of cultural borders.55 Thereby, these quotes underline the idea of a “Fortress Europe,” a Europe, which closes its doors not only to Turkish, but also to other non-EU, non-white, non-Christian

53 “Wir Europäer sind gemeinsam auf das Stärkste von der auf dem Boden judeo-christlicher Tradition entstandener Kultur geprägt; die Türken als weit überwiegend muslimische Nation gehören einem ganz anderen Kulturkreis an, der seine Heimat in Asien und Afrika hat, nicht aber in Europa.” Translations into English are mine unless otherwise marked. See: Adelson, “Opposing Oppositions: Turkish-German Questions in Contemporary German Studies,” 309.

54 “Wenn die Türkei ein Teil der Europäischen Gemeinschaft werden will, muss sie abstreifen, was noch an Asiatischem an ihr haftet.” Ibid.

55 In the introduction to their anthology on literature and migration, the editors state that “kulturelle Grenzziehungen” (“cultural border drawings”) are a result of the merging discourses on migration, religion and citizenship. Özkan Ezli, Dorothee Kimmich, and Annette Werberger, “Vorwort,” in Wider den Kulturenzwang. Migration, Kulturalisierung und Weltliteratur, ed. Özkan Ezli, Dorothee Kimmich, and Annette Werberger (Bielefeld: Transcript, 2009), 12.

21 migrants.56 The reversal of this idea is the “New Europe,” which enjoys and promotes a freedom of movement, a mobility granted to the EU countries and other European countries such as and . Most important for the current construction of the “New Europe” is the EU’s emphasis on disseminating a sense of unity and “Europeanness” through its institutionalized body. Wenn die Türkei ein Teil der Europäischen Gemeinschaft werden will, muss sie abstreifen, was noch an Asiatischem an ihr haftet In this mission of European unity and identity construction, film plays a particularly important role as is manifested through European film funding structures, award committees and prizes. Akın was a winner of such a European cinema prize in 2007.57 Through this EP award, Akın has officially been accepted and promoted as a European filmmaker whose films are read in accordance with the European Union’s visions about integration and diversity in Europe. However, I argue that Akın goes beyond a purely EU vision of the “New Europe.” He even undermines its “Schengen” freedom of movement, for example, by extending the spheres of Europe well into Northeast Turkey, by displaying already integrated musical and linguistic soundscapes which include tunes and sounds associated with the peripheries of a geo-political Europe, and also by narrating stories of illegal border crossing and migration.

56 “Fortress Europe” is the theme in many films about human trafficking and (illegal) migration to European countries. Brown et al. and Loshitzky discuss this term as well as a variety of European films that display illegal migration and human trafficking. See: Brown, Iordanova, and Torchin, Moving People, Moving Images: Cinema And Trafficking In the New Europe; Loshitzky, Screening Strangers.

57 “LUX 07 Cinema Prize.”

22 Akın as European Filmmaker

As Ezli states, Akın’s the Edge of Heaven might depict places in Turkey and Germany, but his cinema is to be located in a global and international context.58 Recent European film venues and celebrations of Akın as a European filmmaker in a globalized world support such a contextualization.59 In a more general assessment of contemporary European cinema, Luisa Rivi states that recent EU co-productions reflect on a new diversity and hybridity in European filmmaking.60 In a different context, discussing Akın’s The Edge of Heaven, Deniz Göktürk declares that the films of Fatih Akın, together with Michael Haneke’s and Krzysztof Kieślowski’s films, are examples of a decentralized and multilocal Europe.61 This filmic depiction of a decentralized, multilocal, diverse, and hybrid Europe is most certainly connected to the effects of globalization on European cinema in general, and on Akın’s cinema in particular.62

58 Ezli, “Von der interkulturellen zur kulturellen Kompetenz. Fatih Akın’s globalisiertes Kino,” 211.

59 “48 FIC XiXÓn: Festival International de Cine de Gijón 19 - 28 Noviembre de 2009.”; “Junges Russland: Fatih Akin - Ein Regisseur der Globalisierung.”; Kyung-Ho Cha, “Erzählte Globalisierung. Gabentausch und Identitätskonstruktion in Fatih Akın’s ‘Auf der anderen Seite’,” in Kultur als Ereignis: Fatih Akıns Film “Auf der anderen Seite” als Transkulturelle Narration (Bielefeld: Transcript, 2010), 135- 149.

60 Rivi mentions Michael Haneke in this context as an example for such a “new hybrid and decentralized Europe.” Rivi, European Cinema after 1989: Cultural Identity and Transnational Production, 10.

61 The words Göktürk uses are “multilingual,” “multilocal,” and “European.” Göktürk, “Mobilität und Stillstand im Weltkino digital,” 35.

62 Mary Wood puts an emphasis on globalization’s impact on European cinematic productions. She understands globalization as the so-called “time-space compression:” An “experience of other cultures and events via globalized communication systems, the huge increase in air travel, and the presence of people from other cultures within old national borders.” Wood, Contemporary European Cinema, xii.

23 Globalization not only impacted the form and content of film, but also the filmmaker’s function.63 Akın, who enjoys categorizations among German, Turkish, and European cinema, is a product of such a globalized filmmaking. He is singled out and celebrated as an author-filmmaker, although in public as well as in academic discourse, the terms auteur, author, and Autor have been contested terms.64 Film scholars such as Janet Staiger and Rosanna Maule, for example, see the author as a “sociology-of- production.” Various film professionals work together and collaboratively create product; this includes the director of a film, who becomes a collaborator.65 Taking a different approach, I argue that today, European filmmakers such as Akın or Haneke might still be key figures in European filmmaking, arranging the content, style, and form of a film.66

63 With reference to art and authorial film, Mary Wood says that this has been “regarded as quintessentially European,” but that there have been fundamental changes over the last 20 years. Wood suggests that the role of the European filmmaker has changed in the new globalized . The “contemporary strategy of combining the actor/director/producer role is revealed as a career move to retain artistic control over production, and as emblematic of how to use the European Union subsidies.” Ibid., xix, xx.

64 According to film scholar Rosanna Maule, with the advent of structuralism, post-structuralism and deconstruction, and, finally, cultural studies in film discourse, the anti-authorial enterprise began. Rosanna Maule, Beyond Auteurism: New Directions in Authorial Film Practices in , and Spain Since the 1980s (Bristol, UK: Intellect, 2008), 22.

65 Although Maule acknowledges the relative high status of the director in popular discourses and the director’s name’s use as a strategic construction for marketing purposes, she rejects the idea of a creative artist behind the term auteur referring to an individual. Ibid., 15.

66 According to Everett “the idea that the director has the controlling vision remains a powerful concept in relation to the low-budget, personal narratives that still dominate European cinema.” Furthermore, Wood states that “[a]uthorial cinema survives [today] as a category because it is enshrined in institutional practice and in public discourse. Auteurs have a cultural and commercial function, licensed by virtue of their skills and aims to explore areas outside the mainstream and existing as a commercial performance of ‘the business of being an auteur’ (Corrigan 1991: 104). However, whereas the marketing of European authorial cinema openly fetishizes the director’s name and identifies markers of authorial enunciation in their films, the real business of negotiating production finance and distribution deals is largely concealed.” Wendy Everett, ed., European Identity in Cinema, 2nd (1996) ed. (Bristol and Portland: Intellect, 2005), 11; Wood, Contemporary European Cinema, 41. 24 Since his early successes, many film scholars and critics have labeled Akın an Autor or auteur, linking him particularly to the New German Cinema of .67 Akın himself has been eager to create references to Autor-filmmakers from Germany and auteurs from Turkey and the US.68 Thereby, Akın constructs himself as the auteur-director of his films. In the extra features and in interviews, he stresses that he works on many aspects of his films either by himself or in collaboration with others.69 These aspects include music, script, editing, directing as well as acting. Since the founding of his production company Corazón International in 2004 together with Klaus Maeck and the late Andreas Thiel, Akın is also the producer of his own films.70 Akın,

67 Many authors have referred to Akın and other Turkish-German directors as auteurs, but have not discussed how it applies to Akın’s work particularly. Berghahn, “No Place like Home? Or Impossible Homecomings in the Films of Fatih Akin,” 141; Erdoğan, “Star Director as Symptom: Reflections on the Reception of Fatih Akin in the Turkish Media,” 27; Kosta, “Transnational Space and Music: Fatih Akın’s Crossing the Bridge: The Sound of Istanbul (2005).”; Deniz Göktürk, “Sound Bridges and Travelling Tunes,” in Congress Book: XVIIth International Congress of Aesthetics, ed. Jale Nejdet Erzen (: Sanart, 2008), 423-436; Göktürk, “Sound Bridges: Transnational Mobility as Ironic Drama.”; Göktürk, “Mobilität und Stillstand im Weltkino digital.”; Mennel, “Bruce Lee in Kreuzberg and Scarface in Altona: Transnational Auteurism and Ghettocentrism in Thomas Arslan’s Brothers and Sisters and Fatih Akin’s Short Sharp Shock.”

68 By using actors such as Hannah Schygulla and (who represent national cinemas made by auteurs such as R.W. Fassbinder and Yılmaz Güney) in The Edge of Heaven, or by thanking Martin Scorsese and Francis F. Coppola in the credits of Short Sharp Shock or In July, Akın overtly creates a link to national and international auteurs and film legends. Akın also directly references his connections to German Autorenkino in an interview with The New York Times. Kulish, “A Hand That Links Germans and Turks.”

69 Most notably film critic Volk stresses the collaborative nature of Akın’s films, referring particularly to Akın’s editor Andrew Bird, whom he sees as the main creator of the unique structure of The Edge of Heaven. Stefan Volk, “Von der Form zum Material. Fatih Akın’s doppeltes Spiel mit dem Genrekino in ‘Gegen die Wand’ und ‘Auf der anderen Seite’,” in Kultur als Ereignis: Fatih Akıns Film “Auf der anderen Seite” als transkulturelle Narration (Bielefeld: Transcript, 2010), 151-158.

70 The company, which was primarily founded to produce Akın’s films, also co-produced other national and international films such as Takva and Chiko. “Corazón International: Profile,” Corazón International, accessed September 6, 2010, http://www.corazon-int.de/?r=26.

25 thereby, fits certain criteria of the traditional German Autor.71 He is a contemporary European filmmaker, who has gone through state education and the institutions of cinema in Germany. He has considerable artistic control over his product, like many of the NGC directors. Furthermore, with his films, he inspires discussion about “contemporary issues” within Germany, Turkey, and also Europe in general (e.g. through implicit topics such as migration, integration, and belonging). However, contrary to NGC films, Akın does not exclude the aspect of entertainment from his films. To the contrary, Akın states in an interview that he wishes to combine popular entertainment cinema with the so- called critically acclaimed cinema.72 For my dissertation, I use a working definition of European filmmaker, which allows analyzing Akın as having authorial control of his films, visually, aurally, and thematically. Generally, I acknowledge that other film personnel such as cameramen,

71 Sheila Johnston explains that in the 1970s, German cinema appropriated for its New German Cinema the French auteur concept. Rainer W. Fassbinder, Werner Herzog and others have been grouped together under the term “Autorenkino.” Influenced by the Cahiers group, after the Oberhausen Manifesto in 1962, where twenty-six directors, writers, and other filmmakers were present, the notion of the Autor in filmmaking was introduced in Germany. Filmmakers needed liberation from constraints of the industry and commercial exploitation. “The concept of the Autor film implied both that it should clearly convey the vision of its creators and that the director should retain overall control without having any financial obligations” (122). However, in contrast to auteur theory of Andrew Sarris, for example, the German Autor was not necessarily a director to whose oeuvre one had to look retrospectively in order to find its quality or individual style. In fact, a German Autor, could have been a young, first time filmmaker, someone who would, for example, “convey and reflect on ideas” (124, 125). Johnston states that whereas authorship was a critical tool for the auteur theorists, the “idea of the Autor was … a programmatic principle which was to be achieved not just by arguing for a particular relation of director to film, but by setting up new legal, contractual, and institutional relations and special forms of training” (127). The German Autor had its hey-days in the 1970s and 80s with the New German Cinema, where state subsidies and film schools were providing a platform for artistic education, production, and criticism. See: Sheila Johnston, “The Author as Public Institution,” in The European Cinema Reader (London and New York: Routledge, 2002), 121-131.

72 In an interview toward the end of the documentary Fatih Akın- Diary of a Film Traveler, Akın states that he is most pleased when his films are praised by his family, the general movie goers, who are looking for entertainment as well as by film critics writing for feuilletons or working at European art circuits. Akın, Fatih Akın - Tagebuch eines Filmreisenden.

26 sound designers, and editors contribute to the finalized product and its reception. Yet, I believe that with the self-presentation as Autor or auteur through interviews and documentaries, Akın creates a form of authorial power over his filmic product.73 I further read Akın as the main designer of the filmic structures, stylistically and thematically. Akın, who is the writer, director, and producer of most of his films, allows for such a reading.74 Ultimately, I argue that there is a binding thematic and stylistic continuity in Akın’s films and my goal in this dissertation is to uncover patterns and interconnectedness in Akın’s filmic oeuvre through close textual readings of the films. Furthermore, I hope to show the films’ impact on contemporary discourses on immigration, migration, belonging, and Europeanness. Read as a migrant filmmaker, awarded with European, German regional, and national film prizes, and selected to represent Germany and Turkey in the same year with two films at the 2008 Oscars, Akın is hard to pin down to a single category. His work symbolizes multiple affiliations in terms of genre as well as in terms of regional, national, and supranational belonging. Furthermore, Akın seems to complicate categories within European cinema. He seems to be located at the nexus of the so-called Hollywood, European art house and European popular cinema. These are categories that often have

73 Göktürk mentions the “originality seal” (“Originalitätssiegel”) that Akın’s audio commentary and interviews provide for the audience of his films on DVDs. She states that these serve as an “auctorial gesture” (“auktoriale Geste”). Göktürk, “Mobilität und Stillstand im Weltkino digital,” 17.

74 German Autorenkino was perceived almost as an artisanship, which received much critical acclaim in the “art house” circles in Europe and in the . Autoren-filmmakers distinguished themselves from commercial and industrial filmmakers. In retrospect, Ulrike Sieglohr writes (referring to Elsaesser) that the idea of a self-expressive Autor was a “discursive construction designed to attract media attention rather than creative originating source” (82). She further states that the NGC in the 1970s functioned as a “public sphere - as a forum for debating contemporary issues – rather than within the realm of entertainment” (82). Ulrike Sieglohr, “New German Cinema,” in : Critical Approaches (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), 85.

27 been kept apart.75 Scholars interested in the interconnectedness and continuity of films and filmmakers have questioned these categories, which often refer to a .76 Taking a critical approach to restrictive categories, film scholars Jill Forbes and Sarah Streets elaborate the deeply inflicted mutual influences that films and filmmakers across the Atlantic have had over many decades. A recent example they give is Mathieu Kassovitz’s 1995 La Haine,77 which was inspired by Martin Scorsese, who, in turn, has been inspired by the European art cinema of the 1960s for his own cinematic oeuvre.78 Interestingly, Akın’s Short Sharp Shock is often mentioned as inspired by La Haine, and the director himself mentions Scorsese in his credits. According to Everett, European cinema has a “multiple, diverse, and complex identity,” which should be considered in European cinema scholarship.79 With Akın’s cinema, these complexities are laid out on the screen with a single director, whose work links Turkish-German, German, European, and global cinema as well as entertainment and art house cinema.

75 Since film criticism’s early days, the field of cinema studies has been defining what Europe and European is in varying ways. For European cinema this often meant to be read against a Hollywood cinema. Everett writes that European cinema has attempted: “… to define itself by what it isn’t; by its difference from classical Hollywood film (linear narratives leading to a closed conclusion; fast cutting and action; a highly developed star system; ambitious and sophisticated special effects). Thus European cinema directors often distanced themselves from these attributes by identifying their own opposing specificities (for example: irony and self-reflexivity; slow, reflective camera work; innovative editing; ambiguity)” (17). Everett, European Identity in Cinema, 10, 17ff.

76 Ginette Vincendeau, “Issues in European Cinema,” in World Cinema: Critical Approaches (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), 58.

77 Mathieu Kassovitz, La Haine, Drama (Criterion Collection, 2007).

78 Jill Forbes and Sarah Street, European Cinema: An Introduction (Houndsmills, Basingstoke and New York: Palgrave, 2000), 43; Jill Forbes, “La Haine,” in European Cinema: An Introduction (Houndsmills, Basingstoke and New York: Palgrave, 2000), 177.

79 Everett, European Identity in Cinema, 9, 14.

28 AKıN AND THE CONTEXT OF TURKISH-GERMAN CINEMA

Despite his rejections of the niche category of migrant cinema, Akın has often been read in the context of Turkish-German cinema.80 I believe that cinematic categories do not have to be mutually exclusive. Akın’s cinema can simultaneously be read in the context of Turkish-German cinema, German national cinema, as well as in the context of European/ European diasporic cinema. Each category has its validity and offers different, productive points of reference and comparison for film analyses. It is vital to analyze Akın’s stylistic and thematic concerns in a German or European context to move beyond niche categories. However, at the same time, it is also vital to compare and contrast Akın’s filmmaking with prior Turkish-German cinema in order to scrutinize ruptures and continuities within this particular film history. Akın’s films, in which the motif of travel and migration, the use of an international cast and scenery as well as diverse musical and verbal soundtrack take center stage, provide a new vision of and contemplation on the Europe of the 21st century and about Turkey’s and Germany’s role in this Europe. The cosmopolitan subjects in Akın’s films move in various geographical directions, switch languages, and cease to be either “Turks” or “Germans,” but perform instead a certain form of “Europeanness,” which allows for an aesthetic appreciation of heterogeneity and diversity in his films. While migration, movement, and foreign languages were present in earlier Turkish- German films, Akın’s imageries and soundscapes offer a new take on these aspects of Turkish-German/German cinema. Earlier films often focused on fundamentally different

80 Akın has often been read under the rubric of Turkish-German Cinema. Akın himself has emphasized often that he is a filmmaker, a German filmmaker, who did not want to be classified solely under a niche reserved for diasporic or ethnic directors. For a brief discussion of this see, for example, Gerd Gemünden’s article “Hollywood in Altona” (180 ff.). 29 cultures and languages.81 Akın’s films display integrated sounds and sights that are in mutual exchange. After four decades of Turkish-German cinema, it is crucial to revisit and rethink the films as well as the changing discourses on the subject matter that should be considered a part of Akın’s filmic background. Much has happened between Fassbinder’s 1969 film Katzelmacher, which brought fame to the director and brought the figure of the Mediterranean Gastarbeiter (guest worker) onto the cinema screens, and Akın’s 2004 film Head-On, in which the Turkish-German successor of guest workers portrays as much of Turkey as of Germany in a transnational setting. In Turkish-German cinema, the mute, victimized guest worker who lived in enclosed, peripheral spaces in the Germany of the 1970s has transformed into the multilingual, mobile subject of the 21st century, who travels between the wide, transnational spaces of Europe and beyond. I divide Turkish-German cinema into four different phases.82 I set phase one from the late 1960s to the 1970s. These films were directed by German directors and often deal with the life experiences of guest workers. The films of phase two were mainly filmed during the 1980s. The films, made by German and Turkish-German directors, were about first- and second-generation Turkish-Germans living in Germany, focusing on female

81 Ezli discusses, for example, Başer’s films, which depict a fundamentally different “Turkish” culture for the observing “German” audience. Ezli, “Von der interkulturellen zur kulturellen Kompetenz. Fatih Akın’s globalisiertes Kino,” 209.

82 I am aware that there might be films that do not allow for such a categorization or periodization. My four-phase periodization relies on a general take on Turkish-German cinema with its most prominent directors as will be discussed further below. There are also other periodizations, in which films from the 1960s, 70s and 80s are merged, such as in Göktürk’s or Ezli’s work. Ibid., 208ff.; Deniz Göktürk, “Turkish Delight - German Fright: Migrant Identities in Transnational Cinema,” ESRC: Economic & Social Research Council - Transnational Communities Programme: Working Paper Series, 2000, accessed January 15, 2008, http://www.transcomm.ox.ac.uk/working_papers.htm; Göktürk, “Migration und Kino- Subnationale Mitleidskultur oder Transnationale Rollenspiele?”.

30 suffering. The films of phase three are from the 1990s and are characterized by a broader array of themes and aesthetics. The 2000s represent the fourth and most current phase of Turkish-German cinema, which is characterized by a fundamentally changed vision of Germany, Turkey, and Europe with an influx of mobility and transnational connections. I read Akın as the initiator and most prolific director of this forth phase of Turkish-German cinema, which includes about a dozen Turkish-Greman directors of fame such as Züli Aladağ, Buket Alakuş, Thomas Arslan, Hussi Kutlucan, Ayşe Polat and so forth.83 Much of early and recent scholarship has been critical of the films from the first phase. Scholars like Angelica Fenner, Deniz Göktürk, and Anna Kuhn criticize the depiction of guest workers as stereotypical and clichéd in films like Fassbinder’s Katzelmacher (1969) and Angst essen Seele auf (Ali: Fear eats the Soul, 1974) or Helma Sanders-Brahms’s Shirins Hochzeit (Shirin’s Wedding, 1976).84 According to Randall Halle, the early depiction of ethnic minorities in German cinema of the 1970s is “radical excision:” the death or departure of the ethnic minority toward the end of the film.85 Thus the narrative conflict is resolved by the radical excision of the ethnically other.86 The

83 See also Berghahn, “Introduction: Turkish-German Dialogue on Screen.”; “Sowohl als auch: Das ‘deutsch-türkische’ Kino heute,” filmportal.de, accessed April 9, 2011, http://www.filmportal.de/df/cb/Artikel,,,,,,,,ED2A50E4A3E5E7B4E03053D50B3708F2,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,.ht ml.

84 Angelica Fenner, “Turkish Cinema in the New Europe: Visualizing Ethnic Conflict in Sinan Çetin’s Berlin in Berlin,” camera Obscura 15, no. 2 (2000): 104-149; Deniz Göktürk, “Beyond Paternalism: Turkish German Traffic in Cinema,” in The German Cinema Book, ed. Tim Bergfelder, Erica Carter, and Deniz Göktürk (Suffolk: bfi, 2002), 248-256; Anna A. Kuhn, “Bourgeois Ideology and the (Mis) Reading of Günter Wallraff’s Ganz Unten,” New German Critique 46, no. Special Issue on Minorities in German Culture (Winter 1989): 191-202; Rainer Werner Fassbinder, Ali Fear Eats the Soul, Drama (New Yorker Video, 1989); Rainer Werner Fassbinder, Katzelmacher, Drama, Romance (Basis-Film Verleih/Berlin, 1969); Helma Sanders-Brahms, Shirins Hochzeit, Drama, 1976.

85 Randall Halle, German Film After Germany: Toward a Transnational Aesthetic (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2008), 141.

86 Ibid. 31 guest worker, the ethnically other, does not receive a positive conflict-solving treatment, but is banned. The only “solution” is to die, become hospitalized, or cease to exist as a meaningful component in contemporary German society. Yet, these films provided a forum for the actual contemplation on the guest worker issue. Although the topics of the first phase were often depressing and focused only on a few limited aspects of guest workers’ living experiences, the films made the topic of guest workers more public in Germany and abroad.87 While it is true that the thematic embedding of the guest worker was mainly stereotypical and clichéd, it is also true that the directors raised awareness about guest workers and made a discourse on things Turkish-German possible, at a time when guest workers were not seen as active members of contemporary German social life.88 As Göktürk points out “[th]e New German Cinema’s combination of social mission and public subsidy opened a space for the portrayal of the experiences of outsiders, primarily those of women, but gradually also of ethnic minorities, as a topic of feature film production.”89 In the course of the feminist movement of the 1970s, feminist filmmaker Sanders- Brahms introduced the first female protagonist in the series of guest worker depictions. She depicts a courageous Turkish guest worker who follows her fiancée to Cologne, but

87 James Franklin, New German Cinema: From Oberhausen to Hamburg, ed. Warren French (Boston: Twayne Publishers, 1983), 22, 23.

88 For a detailed discussion and documents of Turkish guest worker representations and the history of Turkish guest workers in Germany please see Deniz Göktürk, David Gramling, and Anton Kaes, eds., Germany in Transit: Nation and Migration, 1955-2005, Weimar & Now: German Cultural Criticism, v.40 (Berkeley: University Presses of California, Columbia and Princeton, 2007); Ulrich Herbert, A History of Foreign Labor in Germany, 1880-1980: Seasonal Workers, Forced Laborers, Guest Workers (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1990); Rita C-K Chin, The Guest Worker Question in Postwar Germany (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007).

89 Göktürk, “Beyond Paternalism: Turkish German Traffic in Cinema,” 249.

32 fails in the society, loses her job, is confronted with the harsh realities of exclusion as a “foreigner,” and, finally, is killed as a prostitute. Although, Sanders-Brahms’s Shirin’s Wedding is progressive in terms of depicting a female Turkish protagonist who manages to travel and look after herself (at least initially), the film is trapped in the depiction of victimized Turkish-Germans. This has been heavily criticized by Göktürk, who labels most of the subsidy films from the 1960s-1980s a “cinema of duty,” borrowing from the British context.90 The content and focus of Turkish-German cinema in the 1980s gradually changed from exploited Turkish men and masculinity to threatened Turkish women and femininity. In the late 1980s, films included work by Turkish-German director Tevfik Başer, whose works often focused on Turkish women in Germany, e.g. 40qm Deutschland (40 Square Meters of Germany, 1986) and by Hark Bohm, who focused on a second-generation Turkish-German daughter figure, e.g. Yasemin (1988).91 Although praised and critically acclaimed in earlier years, more recent scholarship aligns these films with the 1970s agenda of victimized and stereotypical portrayals of guest workers and their families. In the 1980s, the main themes revolved around the social and material life of first- and second-generation guest workers and asylum seekers in Germany. While there are continuities with earlier guest worker films such as pitiful depictions of suffering figures, the thematic focus slowly opened up toward wives, daughters, or other female

90 Deniz Göktürk, “Turkish Women on German Streets: Closure and Exposure in Transnational Cinema,” in Spaces in European Cinema, ed. Myrto Konstantarakos (Exeter, England: Intellect, 2000), 67.

91 Tevfik Başer, 40 qm Deutschland, Drama (Kinowelt Home Entertainment, 1986); Hark Bohm, Yasemin, Drama, Romance (Kinowelt International GmbH, 1988). 33 protagonists.92 Core themes of this period were the disillusionment and “imprisonment” of immigrants in Germany and a cultural segregation between “German” societies and “Turkish” exile societies.93 A particularly prominent theme in the depiction of second- generation Turkish-Germans was the “two-world” model: the portrayal of a life in- between two cultures.94 Being torn (apart) between the “Turkish” culture of the parents and the “German” culture of the “host” country is often considered a main social problem. Often, oppressed women, the wives or daughters of guest workers, were the sympathetic protagonists in these films. Hark Bohm’s 1988 film Yasemin represents this phenomenon of in-betweenness in the Turkish-German community. This “two-world” model was also prominent in literary productions of the 1980s.95 For a long time, Yasemin has been referred to as a “milestone” in Turkish-German understanding. Göktürk clarifies that Yasemin, in fact, simply, reaffirms “long-held stereotypes according to which German society is considered enlightened and civilized, while Turkish patriarchy is bound to archaic rituals and traditional beliefs.”96 For

92 These films have been described as patronizing the constantly victimized Turkish-Germans on the cinema screens in the same way as earlier films. Göktürk, “Migration und Kino- Subnationale Mitleidskultur oder Transnationale Rollenspiele?,” 335, 336.

93 Both of Başers films, 40 Squaremeters of Germany as well as Farewell to a False Paradise, use tropes of imprisonment. According to film scholar Hamid Naficy, these tropes are frequently used in films about exile and migration. Hamid Naficy, An Accented Cinema: Exilic and Diasporic Filmmaking (Princeton, N.J: Princeton University Press, 2001), 191.

94 Göktürk, “Beyond Paternalism: Turkish German Traffic in Cinema,” 251; Rob Burns, “Images of Alterity: Second-Generation Turks in the Federal Republic,” The Modern Language Review 94, no. 3 (July 1999): 748, 753.

95 Following Leslie A. Adelson, Esen criticizes the “two-world” model in her dissertation. Analyzing contemporary Turkish-German literature and film, Esen constructs a counter narrative to the “in-between” paradigm. Esen, “Beyond ‘In-Between,’ Travels and Transformations in Contemporary Turkish-German Literature and Film.”

96 Göktürk, “Beyond Paternalism: Turkish German Traffic in Cinema,” 251.

34 Göktürk, the depiction of Turkish-Germans in films of the 1980s, whether they are directed by ethnic minorities like Bașer or by “indigenous Germans” like Hark Bohm, are ideologically similar because they are subsidized by similar funds.97 Both, ultimately, stress the fact that the Turkish “other” needs to be completely assimilated into German society by breaking with things Turkish. “The liberation of the poor Turkish woman from captivity, repression, dependence, or prostitution is a popular fantasy, in which empathy with the victims of a violent ‘other’ culture primarily serves the purpose of self- confirmation.”98According to Göktürk, through these films, German society confirms its superior, civilized, and aspired status into which the second generation can still enter and integrate, if it radically breaks with the first generation - a viewpoint that also affirms the assimilation politics of the 1980s in Germany. Whereas the 1980s seemed to offer a new form of assimilation as a solution to the Ausländerproblem (foreigner problem), the 1990s once again took a new shift in terms of cultural approaches. Social workers, educators, and cultural studies scholars seemed to support advocating a multicultural turn in the treatment of migrants. According to this multicultural approach, the expectation was no longer the erasure of ethnic traits and an adaptation to German lifestyle and culture, but rather the acceptance of a diverse cultural simultaneity by German and non-German citizens living in Germany.99 This multicultural

97 Göktürk, “Migration und Kino- Subnationale Mitleidskultur oder Transnationale Rollenspiele?,” 336.

98 Göktürk, “Beyond Paternalism: Turkish German Traffic in Cinema,” 251.

99 David Horrocks and Eva Kolinsky, “Introduction: Migrants or Citizens? Turks in Germany between Exclusion and Acceptance,” in Turkish Culture in German Society Today, ed. David Horrocks and Eva Kolinsky (Providence and London: Berghahn Books, 1996), xx.

35 tolerance course dovetailed with the outbreak of xenophobia in various right-winged subcultures in the early 1990s.100 In cinematic terms, Turkish-German cinema of the 1990s provided more diversified representations of Turkish-Germanness than earlier portrayals. Whereas the early 1990s still adhered to a thematic reliance on the “two-world” model, exemplified through film titles such as Serap Berrakkarasu’s 1991 film Töchter zweier Welten (Daughters of Two Worlds), there are also refreshing turns and twists on shifting perspectives on minorities which begin with Turkish director Sinan Çetin’s 1993 film Berlin in Berlin, in which the ethnic contemplation of difference is reversed: A German photographer turns into a foreigner, an exile in the apartment of a Turkish family in Berlin-Kreuzberg.101 Toward the end of the 1990s, a newer, younger generation of Turkish-German directors emerged and produced various genres such as satire, comedy, gangsta and documentation films, among others. A new hybridity, which evolved within academic, governmental, and social discourse, but also was visible in public spaces in the cities, can be observed in “fresh and gritty German metropolitan films.”102 Additionally, with Akın, a new aesthetically oriented filmmaking has been on the rise since the late 1990s.

100 Writing about contemporary hate crimes, Journalist Deniz Yücel remembers the fatal attacks in Mölln and Solingen in the early 1990s that were the result of xenophobic subcultures. Deniz Yücel, “Das Trauma von Mölln,” taz.de, February 10, 2008, accessed March 4, 2010, http://www.taz.de/1/leben/alltag/artikel/1/das-trauma-von-moelln/?src=SE&cHash=83c0efc74b.

101 Serap Berrakkarasu, Töchter zweier Welten, Documentary, 1991; Sinan Çetin, Berlin in Berlin, Drama, 1993; Angelica Fenner, “Turkish Cinema in the New Europe: Visualizing Ethnic Conflict in Sinan Çetin’s Berlin in Berlin,” Camera Obscura 44, no. 2 (2000): 114.

102 Randall Halle, German Film After Germany: Toward a Transnational Aesthetic (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2008), 146.

36 The 1990s brought a new Turkish-German tone onto the movie screens.103 This younger generation of filmmakers started to direct and portray new cinematic visions of specific neighborhoods in urban spaces. Hamburg, Berlin, and Kiel all of a sudden became venues for a new diversity.104 Akın is one of these new directors. His first feature film Kurz und schmerzlos (Short Sharp Shock, 1998) resulted in prizes and fame for the director, and brought the ghetto-aesthetics onto the screen. The language, style, and lifestyle of a multiethnic, petty-criminal circle of friends seemed not to focus much on the cliché pictures of foreignness in Germany. The director carefully adopted a Scorsese- esque gangster-style for his Turkish-German film, combining it with the tales of urban hip-hop-culture.105 In telling a story about the contemporary urban experiences of three ethnically diverse friends, Akın shifted the focus from the oppression and victimhood of guest workers and their families. Göktürk and other film scholars determine changes within Turkish-German Cinema after Akın’s Short Sharp Shock. Sabine Hake, for example, states, “Turkish- German films have contributed to the repoliticisation of cinema around issues of identity and their relationship to practices of exclusion and discrimination.”106 This is highly relevant, considering that German film from the decade of the 1990s has been called by Eric Rentschler a “cinema of consensus” and by Elsaesser “cockily mainstream, brazenly commercial,” a cinema that “wants no truck with the former quality label ‘art

103 Burns, “Turkish-German Cinema: From Cultural Resistance to Transnational Cinema?,” 133.

104 Göktürk, “Turkish Women on German Streets: Closure and Exposure in Transnational Cinema,” 72.

105 Ibid.

106 Sabine Hake, German National Cinema, 2nd ed. (London and New York: Routledge, 2008), 216.

37 cinema.’”107 These statements suggest that film scholars Elsaesser and Rentschler did not consider Turkish-German cinema when discussing the films of the 1990s.108 While Burns critically refers to these 1990s Turkish-German productions as “post-ethnic” and apolitical, Halle talks about the newest generation of Turkish-German cinema in rather affirmative tones.109 He states that earlier depictions were concerned with the unfair, discriminatory treatments of guest workers and with female victims, such as Turkish daughters and wives who suffered under Islamic patriarchy.110 Other portrayals included the representations of “folklore Turks,” depicting unthreatening cultural goods such as music, food, and costumes. New directors, the “New Turkish Wave,” Halle continues, including Thomas Arslan, Kutluğ Ataman, and Akın, produced an inspiring new metropolitan cinema.111 Halle categorizes the new Turkish-German cinema starting in the 1990s into three groups. He states that the representations of migrants shifted from the “exhabitants,” to the “co-habitants,” and, finally, to the “inhabitants” of Germany. For Halle, Arslan’s characters symbolize the so-called “exhabitants” - they neither belong to Turkey nor to Germany - they could, for example, be deported or expelled from Germany. The “exhabitants” do not feel as if they have a tolerated space in either Turkey or Germany. Lars Becker’s Kanak Attack (2000) represents the “radicalized cohabitant.”

107 David Clarke, ed., German Cinema: Since Unification, New Germany in Context (London: Continuum, 2006), 2, 3.

108 I assume that the critics focused on German mainstream cinema of the time, leaving out art film, gay and lesbian films, and other minority films in their discussions of German (popular) cinema.

109 Burns, “Turkish-German Cinema: From Cultural Resistance to Transnational Cinema?,” 143.

110 Halle, German Film After Germany, 141, 143.

111 Ibid., 146.

38 Zaimoğlu’s book and Becker’s film adaptation clearly make claims for the status of the cohabitants, “the diverse Kanaksters present a radicalized call of ‘We’re here, we’re not leaving, get used to it.’”112 The “radicalized cohabitant” could be seen as a violent product of the Parallelgesellschaft (parallel society).113 Whereas Akın’s characters, for example, become a part of Germany, they become “inhabitants” of Germany. This new Turkish-German cinema brings about two complicated issues. First, young Turkish-German directors in general, and Akın in particular, are recognized as a post-guest worker generation who moved beyond the victim-discourses that their parents’ generation were so often a part of. Their filmic depictions of second- and third-generation immigrants vary drastically from earlier versions of guest-worker depictions. Their subjects are part of a local cultural space in Germany; they participate and identify with the urban space. And second, their films seem to suggest an artistic turn in Turkish- German filmmaking. Göktürk disseminated criticism towards the spectatorship of Turkish-German cinema, stating that many expect authenticity, and “factual stories about outrages; [whereas] fantasies, fiction, or ironic distance are reserved for western mainstream or art cinema,” and thereby inhibit a purely artistic production and reception of Turkish-German cinema.114 The late 1990s experienced an offspring of artistic productions and receptions of Turkish-German cinema.

112 Lars Becker, Kanak Attack, Drama (Concorde Filmverleih/Munich, 2000), 156; Halle, German Film After Germany, 156.

113 Katherine Pratt Ewing briefly discusses the discourse on “parallel society” as an outcome of multiculturalism (as stated by social activists). Fur further details please see: Katherine Pratt Ewing, “Between Cinema and Social Work: Diasporic Turkish Women and the (Dis)Pleasures of Hybridity,” Cultural Anthropology 21, no. 2 (2006): 265, 266.

114 Göktürk, “Beyond Paternalism: Turkish German Traffic in Cinema,” 250, 251.

39 The year 1998 marked a boom in Turkish-German film production, next to Akın’s Short Sharp Shock, there have been several other productions, such as Yüksel Yavuz’ Aprilkinder (April Children), Yilmaz Arslan’s Yara (Wound), Kultuğ Ataman’s Lola & Bilidikid and the TV co-production Ich Chef, Du Turnschuh (I Boss, You Sneaker) by Hussi Kutlucan that focused on urban experiences of diversity.115 Göktürk notices that in 1999, the year in which the dual citizenship issue was publicly debated, the Berlin Film Festival screened many Turkish-Germans films as “New German Films” and two were in fact critically acclaimed.116 It was in the new millennium that a new shift had been noticed in Turkish-German cinema introducing the fourth phase. In Akın’s cinematic oeuvre, for example, Halle sees a shift towards a normalization of ethnicity. “With the new century, Fatih Akın offered a breakthrough: films that actually broke with radical excision [death of victims and ethnically others] and imagined a new form of habitation.”117 The new millennium started with a fundamentally changed Europe and Germany. The European Union has been expanding its borders and has candidate countries waiting to join. While more countries are joining the European Union, more and more borders are

115 Clark states that Lola & Bilidikid is thematically and technically a “hybrid film,” a genre mix portraying transcultural elements, a reciprocity of cultural exchange, in a subcultural Berlin which is familiar and distorted simultaneously. Göktürk discusses Ich Chef, du Turnschuh and says that it playfully uses satire, humor, and masquerade to portray hybridity. Yılmaz Arslan, Yara (Yılmaz Arslan Filmproduktion GmbH, 1999); Kutluğ Ataman, Lola + Bilidikid, Drama (Delphi Filmverleih/Berlin, 1999); Christopher Clark, “Transculturation, Transe Sexuality, and Turkish Germany: Kutluğ Ataman’s Lola und Bilidikid,” German Life and Letters 59, no. 4 (October 2006): 562, 557; Deniz Göktürk, “Strangers in Disguise: Role-Play beyond Identity Politics in Anarchic Film Comedy,” New German Critique 92, no. Special Issue on: Multicultural Germany: Art Performance and Media (Spring-Summer 2004): 113; Hussi Kutlucan, Ich Chef, Du Turnschuh, Comedy, 1998; Yüksel Yavuz, Aprilkinder, Drama (Ventura Film/Berlin, 1999).

116 Göktürk, “Turkish Women on German Streets: Closure and Exposure in Transnational Cinema,” 73.

117 Halle, German Film After Germany, 164.

40 opening.118 The Schengen-Protokoll, in effect in the EU since May 1999, has made Europe more accessible from various directions; rules about movement, travel, and migration are more flexible than ever before in Europe’s long history (mainly for EU citizens).119 Göktürk co-published and edited in 2004, together with Germanist Barbara Wolbert, the special issue on “Multicultural Germany: Art, Performance and Media” in the New German Critique. Although the title bears the older term multiculturalism in it, the text makes clear that it is used in a broader sense than in the 1980s and 1990s. In their introduction, the authors state that multiculturalism has received wide attention over the last two decades in North American German studies.120 The authors criticize the fact that “‘minority studies’ was primarily concerned with the politics of recognition and dynamics of inclusion or exclusion within the nation state,” yet, the authors go on to affirm that the current era warrants “thinking and feeling beyond the national.” Both authors put an emphasis on “transnational connections and on cosmopolitanism, on traveling back and forth, rather than on one-directional migration.”121 Discourses on the transnational, cosmopolitan, and even post-national are the most recent trends in Turkish- German studies. Not only literary works but also filmic and other artistic productions are woven into this newly erupting discussion and evaluation of things Turkish-German in a new, unifying Europe. More anthologies dealing with the themes of transnationalism

118 “Europa - Gateway to the European Union”, n.d., http://europa.eu/index_en.htm.

119 It should be mentioned at this point that EU-mobility largely remains a privilege for EU citizens. Border crossings at the fortified edges and boundaries of the political Europe, for citizens from non-EU nation-states remain more difficult. For the Schengener Übereinkommen please see: “Das Schengener Übereinkommen und Schengener Durchführungsübereinkommen.”

120 Deniz Göktürk and Barbara Wolbert, “Introduction,” New German Critique, no. 92, Special Issue on: Multicultural Germany: Art, Performance and Media (Spring-Summer 2004): 3.

121 Ibid.

41 within the film sector were published in the early 21st century, paying particular attention to the German cinema landscape.122 Halle explores the general developments of a transnational cinema in Europe and discusses the particular developments within German cinema production, which is more and more woven into networks of trans-European financial, contracting, filming and production ties.123 Halle criticizes that many have labeled migrant cinema in Europe and elsewhere transnational and, thereby, left European cinema in general under the impression of a “wholeness and organic existence, European intactness, which they are not.”124 Looking at film production and financing, for Halle, transnational cinema is synonymous with European cinema and is not to be used exclusively for the migrant and third world cinemas.125 In his thorough discussion and analysis of Turkish-German cinema, he ends with Akın. Contrary to films such as Kanak Attack (2000), which show the “radicalized cohabitants,” who are opposed to a German Leitkultur, and are part of a parallel society, Akın visualizes a new world which is permeable and transgressable. Halle sees Akın as the “first filmmaker to put forward images that truly imagine the possibility of life as a transnational inhabitant.126 Halle talks about the new cultural and

122 For a recent example of an anthology dedicated to diasporic and transnational cinema, please see: Daniela Berghahn and Claudia Sternberg, eds., European Cinema in Motion: Migrant and Diasporic Film in Contemporary Europe (Houndsmills, Basingstoke and New York: Palgrave MacMillan, 2010).

123 Halle argues that globalization and transnationalism are intrinsically related. Yet, he differentiates the terms and states that transnationalism is a new word that addresses cultural dynamics and sociopolitical processes, whereas globalization belongs to the material economic processes. He further states that film “proves to be the most significant marker of simultaneous economic and cultural transformations, marker of globalization and transnationalism.” Halle, German Film After Germany, 5, 6.

124 Ibid., 8.

125 Ibid.

126 “The transformation was clear in Gegen die Wand but already completed with the film Solino (2002).” Ibid., 164. 42 geographic mobility as visualized in Akın’s films and sees this as part of the general tendencies within a European transnational cinema.127 Today, at the end of the first decade in the 21st century, more and more films showing more radicalized versions of the “inhabitants” of Germany (Chiko, 2008), comedic or satiric version of “culture clash” topics (Kebab Connection, 2005; Süperseks, 2004, Almanya –Willkommen in Deutschland, (Almanya, 2011)), or universal themes such as love, death, and friendship (The Edge of Heaven, 2008) take center stage in the thematic diversity among the Turkish-German film productions.128 Turkish-German cinema no longer refers to victimized, mute Turkish men of the 1970s, nor to oppressed Turkish wives or daughters of guest workers of the 1980s, nor to ghettoized, criminalized male Turkish aggressors of the 1990s. While the early films from the 1970s, in fact up until the late 1990s, were often seen as an “authentic” documentary of the state of the Turks living in Germany, the newer productions, although often still read in terms of authenticity, force the audience to read the depictions of a more diverse cultural setting in terms of transnational aesthetics, or, as I call it, in terms of aesthetics of heterogeneity. Göktürk’s repeated demands for an aesthetic production and reception of Turkish- German film instead of a narrow look at cultures in-between “two worlds” seem to have been finally accepted. Looking at the most recent productions of this young century, her criticism of a lack of humor in Turkish-German film is no longer justified.129 New questions that need to be addressed, which have rarely appeared in the research so far,

127 Ibid., 167, 168.

128 Yasemin Samdereli, Almanya-Willkommen in Deutschland, Comedy (Concorde Filmverleih/Munich, 2011); Anno Saul, Kebab Connection, Comedy (Timebandits, 2005); Torsten Wacker, Süperseks, Comedy, 2004; Özgür Yıldırım, Chiko, Drama (Falcom Media Group/Berlin, 2008).

129 Göktürk, “Strangers in Disguise: Role-Play beyond Identity Politics in Anarchic Film Comedy,” 103. 43 are, for example, the changes in visual and aesthetic representations of Turkey and its local cultures. To what extent did Turkey in general, and Istanbul and other Turkish cities in particular, change from a non-European, threatening space to a metropolitan urban space in the light of an expanding Europe? What does Heimat mean for the new generation of Turkish-German filmmakers and their filmic subjects? Through the analyses and discussions of Akın’s films, I hope to extend Akın scholarship from the niche of Turkish-German cinema to German and European filmmaking in general.

DISSERTATION QUESTIONS

European spatiality as constructed by Fatih Akın in his films is at the core of this dissertation project. The following dissertation questions will help to guide and accompany the sequence- and thematic analyses of the individual films and chapters. These questions pertain to the filmmaker and public figure of Akın and to the cinematic specificities of Akın’s oeuvre. The first set of questions establishes Akın as a European filmmaker. Does Akın have a uniquely filmic way of displaying Europe, Germany, and Turkey, or “ethnicity,” “belonging” and “home”? What do “home,” “belonging,” the “Orient,” and the “Occident” mean in Akın’s films? How are Europe in general and Germany and Turkey in particular constructed (visually and aurally)? What is their relationship? The next set of questions establishes a connection with earlier films by and about Turkish-Germans as well as with recent trends in post-unification cinema. How much does Akın engage with earlier traditions/representations of Turkish-German figures? Where and to what extent does he break with earlier imageries/stereotypes? What is new?

44 Chapter Outline

Chapter 1 scrutinizes the film In July (2000) from the perspective of European space creation, with special emphasis on the themes of border crossings. Literature on road movies will help to frame the in-depth analysis of In July as a European road movie. An example for the extension of European space is the protagonist’s trip from Hamburg to Istanbul and to southern Turkey. The film’s vision is one of a virtually borderless, decentralized Europe. I argue that the director, on the one hand, enlarges European space, and on the other hand, makes borders within Europe seemingly obsolete by using humor and multiple, unconventional, fluid border crossings, and by leaving the end of the travel open and borderless. By showing simultaneously the elasticity as well as the constructed nature of European borders, the director shifts geographical and political borders and creates an imaginary, cinematic Europe. Ultimately, I argue that Akın constructs an alternate Europe through the cast, setting, narrative, soundtrack, and genre of In July. Central features of this flexible Europe are its multiethnicity and polyphony. Chapter 2 discusses the portrayal of (im)migration, changing demographics in European urban spaces, and gendered “Turkish-Germanness” in Head-On (2004) through the analysis of language use. Immigration from non-EU states is a current phenomenon in many European countries and continues to have an impact on their cityscapes. Although the themes of diversity in Germany and Europe have been explored in recent minority studies, an extended critical reading of languages as in Akın’s films’ is missing.130 Scene and sequence analyzes of Head-On will help to flesh out the director’s take on the topic of ethnicity and migration through his language use.

130 Germanist David Gramling offers the first article that deals with the languages of Akın’s characters in his films. However, due to the scope of the article, the analysis cannot provide an in-depth analysis of the languages used in the film and their implications. Gramling, “On the Other Side of Monolingualism: Fatih Akın’s Linguistic Turn.”

45 On the one hand, I argue that migration is multidirectional and not limited to one- way immigration, leaving a so-called “home” country for another, presumably “better” place.131 On the other hand, I argue that Akın, in fact, portrays a normalization of ethnicity, a normalization of migrants and their children and grandchildren in European urban sceneries. Like Halle in his reading of Head-On, I believe that in Akın’s films, migrants and their offspring have become integral, visible, and audible parts of a complex European urban lifestyle and cityscape.132 I further argue that this urban multiethnicity is not limited to a Western European cityscape but can be detected similarly in Istanbul, the traditionally “Oriental” counterpart of European cities. Ultimately, the film portrays an urban multiethnicity, an interconnectedness and mixture of people, places, and languages in diverse Europe as opposed to essentialist notions of separation of “East” and “West,” “Muslim” and “Judeo-Christian,” “Orient” and “Occident,” which were reiterated in conservative public and political discourse post-9/11 and -7/7. Chapter 3 focuses on the use of sound (music and language) in The Edge of Heaven (2007). What is the sound of Europe? How does Akın employ music and language? What are their function, effect, and aesthetics? How do they comment on, emphasize, or ironicize the themes of his films? The Edge of Heaven is a particularly good example for the use of local and global elements in music and languages. The musical composition of the films seems to aurally promote the EU motto of “unity in diversity.” It is not only music, but also the accents and dialects spoken in the film that

131 On a similar note, in her article “Sound Bridges: Transnational Mobility as Ironic Drama” Göktürk talks about the transcendence of conventional migration stories in Head-On (154). Göktürk, “Sound Bridges: Transnational Mobility as Ironic Drama.”

132 Halle discusses the film Head-On, among many other films, in his 2008 book German Film After Germany. Looking in particular at the figures of Sibel and Cahit in Head-On, Halle argues for a normalization of ethnicity in Akın’s film. Halle, German Film After Germany, 167, 168. 46 emphasize the notion of interconnectedness, to the extent that, as I argue, sound unites people and places across diverse and remote filmic spaces. The soundscapes reflect the films’ insistence on perpetual diversity, cultural mixtures, and mutual influences, once again exhibiting the aesthetics of heterogeneity in the film.133 Exemplary scenes and sequences will help to analyze the specificity of musical and linguistic sounds. The results will help to evaluate Akın’s general depiction of European space, people, and places through the sound of Europe.

133 Göktürk examines in her 2008 article “Sound Bridges: Transnational Mobility as Ironic Drama” the music in Head-On (see pages 156ff. for Göktürk’s musical analysis of Head-On). 47 Chapter One: Akın’s Spatial Conceptions and Depictions of Europe in In July

INTRODUCTION

Fatih Akın creates new visions of a multiethnic and decentralized Europe on various filmic levels. Despite growing xenophobic and anti-Islamic attitudes in “the West,” and, conversely, growing Islamic fundamentalisms around the globe, Akın seems to insist (without disregarding the complicated interplay of religion, ethnicity, and xenophobia in today’s Europe) on highlighting the polyphonic and multiethnic aspects of urban living in contemporary Europe. In this chapter, I use Akın’s second feature and first commercially successful film Im Juli (In July, 2000) to discuss the director’s conceptualization of European space. I look at space as a formal as well as a thematic category in In July. I argue that Akın’s filmmaking is particularly marked through his spatial constructions and depictions of Europe and Europeanness. By looking at sights (city- and landscapes) and sounds (soundscapes) in In July, I analyze visual and aural components of Akın’s cinematic European space. Further, I analyze the navigation and connection of these spaces and places by the protagonists in the film. These discussions will give examples for various fluxes, connections, and contradictions that ultimately create a complex European space; a space, moreover, which is at times opposed to and in critical dialogue with conservative popular and political discourses on things European.1 The light-hearted road movie comedy In July differs (in terms of genre, plot, style, and audiences) from Akın’s more recent, critically acclaimed feature films such as Head-On and The Edge of Heaven. That said, In July is very similar in terms of its

1 Ethnic studies scholar Fatima El-Tayeb discusses in length European intellectual and political discourses on things European. She claims that a multiethnic and multireligious Europe has still not been accepted in contemporary conceptualizations of Europe. El-Tayeb, “‘The Birth of a European Public’: Migration, Postnationality, and Race in the Uniting of Europe,” 652, 653.

48 construction of Europe to the more dramatic films. These films offer a coherent narrative of a connected, multiethnic, and polyphonic cinematic Europe.2 A central feature of this European space in Akın’s films is the reliance on dynamism and movement: Various modes of transportation, travel, and movement of the characters as well as mobile narrative structures in the films underscore mobility in the cinematic European space. As my chapter hopes to show, the travels of the characters link local places and help create the filmic space of Europe. In this cinematic Europe, multiethnic and multilingual music, characters, and sceneries are dynamically juxtaposed and in exchange with regions that have often been perceived as historically and politically distinct.3 European spaces and places figure prominently in In July. The beginning of the film immediately highlights the setting: “irgendwo in Bulgarien” (“somewhere in ”).4 The narrative begins with a young, dark-haired, mysterious-looking man, Isa (Mehmet Kurtuluş), getting out of his Mercedes, which has a Berlin license plate, in pre- EU Eastern Europe. This opening sequence introduces the audience to the main character Daniel (Moritz Bleibtreu), who in travel-torn clothes tries to get a ride from Isa. The back-and-forth quarrel between both men ends in their journey to Turkey. After Daniel explains that he is on the way to find his love interest Melek (Idil Üner), the story continues with a flashback narrative of Daniel, who is a teacher in training from Hamburg. The flashback explains why and how the teacher came to Bulgaria and is on his way to Istanbul. Starting in Hamburg and moving further southeast, through a

2 Deniz Göktürk and Barbara Kosta discuss aspects of the polyphonic sound in Head-On and Crossing the Bridge, respectively. Göktürk, “Sound Bridges: Transnational Mobility as Ironic Drama.”; Kosta, “Transnational Space and Music: Fatih Akın’s Crossing the Bridge: The Sound of Istanbul (2005).”

3 These regions include Cold War Eastern Europe or contemporary Turkey.

4 The establishing shot begins with the title insert “somewhere in Bulgaria.” In July, chapter 1, 00:00:18- 00:00:24. 49 Bavarian town, Vienna, and various East European cities and regions, Daniel meets many other travelers. Eventually, the frame narrative continues with Daniel and Isa at the Bulgarian-Turkish border. From here, the last sequences chronologically portray Daniel on his way to a desired meeting spot in Ortaköy, Istanbul, where he hopes to meet Melek. Instead of Melek, he meets his earlier travel companion Juli (Christiane Paul) and both confirm their mutual love, which developed during their initial journey together. The film ends with the continuation of their travel, together with Melek and Isa (who happen to be a couple and coincidentally meet them at the highway in Istanbul) into the “Scheiss- Süden” (“shitty south”).5 Beginning “irgendwo in Bulgarien” and ending on the way to the “Scheiss- Süden,” In July is both a generic European road movie and a politically conscious movie that makes deliberate choices to underscore the porousness of borders. The physical act of border crossings in the film becomes a symbolic act for overcoming cultural, linguistic, and legal borders and boundaries within the filmic narrative. The film wants to overcome existing borders and boundaries for the sake of personal freedom of movement. The continuity among city- and landscapes replaces previously established and commonly accepted social and spatial concepts of a geo-political Europe.6 This continuity is best symbolized through various traveler-figures and their encounters and interactions with each other throughout post-1989 Europe. Akın connects classic

5 Isa refers twice (in the first and last chapter of the film) to the southern parts of Turkey as “Scheiss- Süden” (“shitty south”). It can be inferred that he uses the term ironically, since the southern coast of Turkey is primarily known for its sunny beaches. Predominantly foreign and national tourists and travelers visit this popular region.

6 The broader public commonly accepts existing national and geo-political borders (be it national or continental). Often the ritualized and politicized acts of border crossings or public discourse on the themes of borders and bordered spaces naturalize these. Through the naturalization of borders, the notion of the constructedness of borders is often pushed to the background or is disregarded.

50 European cities such as Hamburg and Budapest, but also the city of Istanbul. At the same time, rural and agrarian landscapes throughout Eastern Europe are linked exposing a seemingly fluid regional continuity. These connected spaces are interrupted and opposed by man-made barriers such as national borders and border symbolism. While thematizing the continuity and connectedness of European space, of Eastern and Western Europe in particular, the director addresses the theme of borders explicitly. Borders play a key role as complicated, metaphorical obstacles to the continuity of European space. For example, the Turkish-German director invites the viewers to reflect on the themes of national borders and border crossings by casting himself as a Romanian border official at the Hungarian-Romanian border. His comedic cameo appearance as border official, in a film about travel and movement, creates a distancing effect for the audience and grounds the themes of open space vs. borders in In July.7

Hungarian-Romanian Border: “Grenzhochzeit” (Border Wedding)8

The Hungarian-Romanian border sequence shows the German protagonist Daniel in the midst of his trans-European travel. He arrives in a stolen car at the highly stylized, though primitive, Hungarian-Romanian border. The setting is an open, sunny space, which is occupied in the center with a building that is divided in half; one half being the Hungarian border office building and the other the Romanian office. A simple pole marks the border, as well as the uniforms of the two officers, their automatic guns, and the large

7 Film scholar John Gibbs talks about “distancing” and “distance” in film by referring to the Brechtian Verfremdungseffekt, formerly known as “alienation effect.” This helps the audience to zoom out and reflect on the meaning of the film, character, scenario etc. John Gibbs, Mise-en-Scene: Film Style and Interpretation (London and New York: Wallflower, 2002), 76.

8 In July, chapter 15, 00:59:31-01:03:39

51 national flags on either side of the border building. Daniel explains to the Romanian border officer (Fatih Akın) that his papers and documents were stolen. The Romanian officer calmly eats sunflower seeds and plays a game of tavla (backgammon) with his Hungarian counterpart at the symmetrical center of the border, which coincides with the center of the frame. He does not allow Daniel to enter Romania without his passport: “No passport, no Romania!”9 Disheartened, Daniel stares into the endless road and fields, which continue seamlessly on the other side of the border. He then sees Juli (his former travel companion) coming out of a WC on the Romanian side of the border. In order to be allowed to continue their joint travel, they agree to perform a ritual of marriage, each standing on opposing sides of the border pole. The Romanian border officer witnesses the wedding ritual and allows Daniel to cross the border but not without asking for his vehicle as a “wedding present.” He says, “In Romania, when you marry, you make present. Bus, my present.”10 The sequence ends with Daniel having unconventionally married and crossed a national border without official documentation. The neutralization of the border through the fake wedding and the corrupt border official unmask the border as arbitrary and constructed. This sequence particularly relies on the opposition of stylized versus non-stylized formal details to make suggestions about borders and border crossings. It features a mainly open frame, set outdoors, seemingly in a Mediterranean climate. While the rural landscape is open and continuous, the stylized border divides and breaks the center of the frame, symbolizing an artificial divide of the otherwise seamlessly continuous rural space. The props (flags, uniforms, poles, etc.) are used to emphasize the image of the

9 The border guard says the phrase “No passport, no Romania” three times in the short border sequence. In July, chapter 15, 00:52:00, 01:00:04, and 01:00:18.

10 In July, chapter 15, 01:03:10. 52 national border, a setting that emerges as almost stage-like. The overall design of the border setting is exaggeratedly symmetrical, which, in addition to the comedic acting of Akın, further questions the highly conventionalized ritual of border crossings. The border is further exposed as artificial by the performance of the border official. The exaggerated acting of the border official is juxtaposed with the more “realistic” acting of the two travelers (Daniel and Juli).11 At the same time, the travelers’ urge for movement is displayed as an acceptable desire for freedom of movement, which is opposed to the staged divisions of rural landscapes and people through borders and border officials. Acting in conjunction with costume, setting, and plot, supports the implied message of the film to challenge European borders. Daniel wears travel-torn white, dirty shirts and pants; Juli is dressed in a casual travel outfit, while the border officers wear national uniforms. Both protagonists’ clothing reflects the typical garb of young European citizens: judging by their clothing alone, they could be from anywhere in Europe. The uniforms of the officials represent the symbolic extension of the border, a transition from the material (border pole) to the symbolic (national emblems). The romantic road movie genre invites the viewers to favor the travelers of the film (Daniel and Juli). Therefore, the unarmed, un-uniformed travelers, who represent movement through regions and thus the continuity of space, are favored characters in the narrative of In July, as opposed to the uniformed guards of the national border.12 Through this favoritism, the film brings into view the perspective on

11 With “realistic” acting, I am referring to a non-stylized acting that depicts the plausible urge of the travelers to cross borders in order to continue their journey.

12 This overcoming of the border might also be related to the film’s romance narrative, which often uses the trope of overcoming obstacles. In the film the obstacles would be the border and the border officials.

53 border crossing without political obstacles. The scene repeatedly reminds the audience of the arbitrariness of border crossing.13 Scholarly work on In July is rare. Yet, when the film is addressed in passing in the existing scholarship, the authors pay specific attention to the themes of borders and border crossings by focusing on the travelers. Borders are asserted at multiple times as “porous,” “constructed” and unfixed.14 Thereby, the authors advocate fluctuating and fluid cultural borders, similar to my broader arguments about Akın’s filmic oeuvre. Göktürk, additionally, reads these unconventional border crossings, especially the appearance and acting of Akın himself, as “ironic moments” in the film.15 This irony is also reflected in the camera angles in the scene. Audiences are lured into favoring Daniel through photographic details, which are at times contradictory to viewer expectations. For example, a low and high angle shot/reverse shot scene between the Romanian officer and Daniel is reversing the role of the person in political power (the border official’s perspective is shown at low angle, looking up at Daniel) versus the petitioner (Daniel), the person without political power (perspective shown from high angle, looking down at the Romanian border officer). Thus, the camera angle is opposed to the expected perspective of the person with or

13 Borders are certainly always constructed. However, often these constructions, be it regional, national, or continental, are naturalized through conventions and rituals. These border crossing scenes, particularly, remind the viewers of the constructedness of these borders and boundaries.

14 Blumentrath et al., for example, say that the unconventional crossings of these borders suggest a depiction of the general constructedness of borders as such. Rob Burns, “Toward a Cinema of Cultural Hybridity: Turkish-German Filmmakers and the Representation of Alterity,” Debatte 15, no. 1 (April 2007): 13; Hendrik Blumentrath et al., Transkulturalität: Türkisch-Deutsche Konstellationen in Literatur und Film (Münster: Aschendorff Verlag, 2007), 113.

15 “In this absurdist enactment of border control, the director’s cameo appearance and mockery of his own role introduces a moment of authorial self-irony, implying a tongue-in-cheek complicity with an initiated audience. Such ironic moments have become a trademark of Hamburg-based Turkish-German director Fatih Akin’s film style.” Göktürk, “Sound Bridges: Transnational Mobility as Ironic Drama,” 153, 154. 54 without political power. By looking down at the Romanian officer through the high angle perspective, Daniel’s position is elevated by the film’s formal language, while the Romanian border official’s authority is denied in filmic terms.16 Yet, it has to be considered that the border official, to whom Daniel literally looks down, is also the director of the film, and thus has authority on the directing level. It is, ultimately, also the border official who allows Daniel to cross the border and thereby regains his authority in the film. Daniel and Juli, on the other hand, are depicted with shot/counter shot at eye level, suggesting equality between the two travelers. In presenting perspectives that might run counter to viewer expectations and established modes of representing national borders, Akın encourages the audience once more to revise possibly existing preconceptions about national borders. The comedic road movie genre might be a facilitating tool for the depiction of unconventional border crossing, disregarding (East European) national regulations. Furthermore, nationality is a fading concept in 21st century European studies and increasingly has been replaced by a focus on regionality.17 This is also visualized in the filmic construction of regional continuity, resembling the EU motto of “Europe of the regions.” A post-1989 and pre-EU East European region is the main setting for this sequence of the road movie (Romania became an official EU member state in 2007 and in 2004). The audience is introduced to these “unchartered,” new parts of Europe that were less accessible to a West European audience before 1989. (Although,

16 This scene could also be read in terms of economic power. Although Daniel is penniless at this stage of the film, he is a representative of a capitalist, West European country. Daniel’s German perspective could be seen as the hegemonic position, from which he is looking down at the economically less powerful nation-state Romania in Eastern Europe, represented by the border official.

17 Ray Hudson, “One Europe or Many? Reflections on Becoming European,” Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers 25, no. 4, New Series (2000): 406.

55 East European countries such as Bulgaria or former Yugoslavia were often traversed during the Cold War by Turkish guest workers travelling from West Germany to Turkey.) In In July, these images represent new regional areas in Eastern Europe, which incorporate new images of today’s Europe. The East European landscape in In July becomes integrated into the life-changing experiences of a north European traveler. By the time Daniel arrives at the Hungarian-Romanian border, the protagonist has experienced nightlife, drugs, carnal desires as well as adventurous trips in Hungary and elsewhere in Eastern Europe. He is not only connecting to the people and places in Eastern Europe, he is also becoming more accustomed to and comfortable in these regions as he learns to navigate and communicate through various Eastern European settings.18 Eastern Europe, as represented through places, people, and music, becomes connected to Daniel’s travel narrative. His quest through Eastern Europe becomes his alternative to a classic, West European Bildungsreise. Early in the film, Daniel and Juli discuss the route for their travel. While Daniel suggests going south, via Italy and then taking a ferry to , Juli prefers to go through Eastern Europe, an idea, which initially seems undesirable and foreign to Daniel. Daniel’s suggestion is a route reminiscent of the Cold War and Balkan Wars, a route many Turkish guest workers and Germans took going to Greece or Turkey, but it is also a route reminiscent of the Bildungsreise. For Goethe, for example, Italy and Greece represented the origins of Western civilization, and therefore, were a necessity for young men to visit in order to learn and become educated citizens. Having Turkey as the goal

18 However, the people Daniel meets during his trip through Eastern Europe, who either help him or take advantage of him, are already accustomed to handle visitors and/or travelers. This grounds, once more, the initial naïveté of Daniel and his inexperience with and ignorance toward Eastern Europe and other regions and people outside his “home.” Although, it should be noted that Daniel is not very comfortable and social in his hometown either. He grows through his trip and becomes more mature and open-minded. 56 ironically mirrors the Bildungsreise of the 18th/19th century adding a 21st century vision to the educational trip. The path for education and growth for the German teacher becomes a route through Central and Eastern Europe and ends, at least in the filmic script, in Istanbul. Is this the route to take to learn about Germany’s present stage? Daniel’s Bildungsreise leads him to the country were the largest immigration community in Germany originated from. Ultimately, his travel moves from the geographical northwest to the southeast of Europe, thereby creating a new, accessible route to Turkey via the East European countries.

MOVEMENT, CITY- AND LANDSCAPES, AND SOUNDSCAPES

Movement: Dynamic Spaces in Europe

Movement plays a key role in In July’s conception of space. It suggests dynamism and multidirectionality within the European space. Although movement is generally a privilege of the legal citizens of Europe, in Akın’s film, various illegal subjects participate in this movement as well.19 Movement and mobility is symbolized by the film’s heavy reliance on genre conventions of the road movie, the various modes of transportation, the movement of the narrative structure as well as the protagonists’ travel. I argue that through the different portrayals and experiences of mobility, the film makes suggestions about the unfixed and unstable conditions in Europe. The cinematic European space is created through activity and mobility.

19 Discussing cinematic trafficking, film scholar William Brown argues that speed and fast movement in a globalized world (Europe) is restricted to the privileged, legal citizens of Europe and excludes trafficked people or people from the edges of a geo-political (Fortress) Europe. William Brown, “Negotiating the Invisible,” in Moving People, Moving Images: Cinema and Trafficking in the New Europe (St Andrews: St Andrews Film Studies, 2010), 16-48.

57 Already the opening sequence of In July situates the film within the road movie genre. In July begins with an emphasis of the setting, the geographic location is highlighted: The establishing shot is of a sunlit country road with fields on either side. The image flickers to suggest intense heat to the viewer. The country road and landscape is introduced with the title: “Donnerstag, 7. Juli 12:10 Uhr, irgendwo in Bulgarien” (Thursday, July 7th, 12:10pm, somewhere in Bulgaria”).20 The space is empty and depicts a vast landscape with fields and electric poles; no person is shown. A Mercedes with a Berlin license plate is slowly driving towards the camera. While the car comes closer, the light dims, and the car stops on the road corner. The opening shot pays particular close attention to space and genre conventions through photography/camera work and setting. The establishing shot is focused on open space, which is shown in long shots that depict the landscape and the wideness of the field and street. This gives the illusion that the street and the fields continue beyond the camera frame, which suggests a continuity of open landscapes. At the same time, the setting is unknown, mysterious and implies adventure, similar to classic U.S. road movies as discussed by film scholar David Laderman. These U.S. films highlight the role of the road and the car. While the road symbolizes the “course of life” and “a lure of both freedom and destiny,” it also provokes “anxiety” and “represents the unknown.”21 According to Laderman, the highway system, as well as vast and open landscapes with “seductive horizons,” are among the most important aspects of the genre. Laderman continues to stress the importance of the landscape by aligning it with freedom of

20 In July, chapter 1, 00:00:18 - 00:00:24.

21 David Laderman, Driving Visions: Exploring the Road Movie (Austin: University of Texas Press, 2002), 2.

58 movement: “Freedom becomes rediscovered as movement across open space.”22 The opening shot of In July thus prepares the audience for an adventurous road movie into “the unknown.” However, instead of an American road movie, in In July the audience is unmistakably introduced to traveling through Eastern Europe with the title insert “somewhere in Bulgaria.” Among scholars, In July is generally accepted as a road movie, whether as a “romantic road movie,” “cross-Balkan road movie,” or simply as a “light-hearted road movie.”23 Film scholar Daniela Berghahn suggests that through “narrative and generic templates of mainstream cinema,” Akın can convey “ethnic identity themes in an accessible and popular format.”24 Thereby, I believe, Berghahn limits the genre’s function in In July to bringing a complex theme (ethnicity) to a wider audience. Berghahn does not include a discussion of the road movie genre as a possible form for thematic engagements with the post-Cold War context of Eastern Europe. The function of the road movie genre is generally not thematized or discussed by the In July scholarship.25 Rather, it is used to briefly contextualize the film as a journey, either as a “transnational journey” through Eastern Europe, or as a psychological journey toward oneself.26 An example for

22 Ibid., 14, 15.

23 Burns, “Turkish-German Cinema: From Cultural Resistance to Transnational Cinema?,” 146; Göktürk, “Sound Bridges: Transnational Mobility as Ironic Drama,” 153; Berghahn, “No Place like Home? Or Impossible Homecomings in the Films of Fatih Akin,” 144.

24 Berghahn, “No Place like Home? Or Impossible Homecomings in the Films of Fatih Akin,” 144.

25 Rob Burns as well as Daniela Berghahn discuss the popular format of In July in addressing the casting of Moritz Bleibtreu and Christiane Paul, but they do not discuss the road movie genre in-depth. Ibid.; Burns, “Turkish-German Cinema: From Cultural Resistance to Transnational Cinema?,” 146.

26 Burns, “Toward a Cinema of Cultural Hybridity: Turkish-German Filmmakers and the Representation of Alterity,” 13.

59 such a psychological journey is the protagonist Daniel’s travel. Daniel, as a transforming traveler is seen to become a “quintessential modern nomad” through his journey from Hamburg to Istanbul.27 Moving beyond the travel narrative of the film, I argue that the focus on movement and dynamism on various levels in In July seems to function as a metaphor for European mobility, especially in the Europe of post-1989.28 I believe that the strategic use of generic material from road movies helps to envision a continuous, dynamic European space.29 Film scholars Ewa Mazierska’s and Laura Rascaroli’s elaborations on European road movies post-1989 provide a good starting point for this hypothesis. The scholars argue that the European road movie is different than its American counterpart.30

27 Rob Burns, “On the Streets and on the Road: Identity in Transit in Turkish-German Travelogues on Screen,” New Cinemas: Journal of Contemporary Film 7, no. 1 (2009): 22.

28 Although I am mainly interested in contemporary road movies in a European context, there are also older road movies with a love plot, which might suggest similar connections between Germany and Eastern Europe. See, for example, Kurt Hoffmann’s Ich denke oft an Piroschka (I Often Think of Piroshka, 1955). The visions of European spaces in this and other travel/vacation films throughout German film history need to be analyzed in future research.

29 For a more detailed discussion and the disputes about origins and definitions of road movies, see: Steven Cohan and Ina Rae Hark, “Introduction,” in The Road Movie Book, ed. Steven Cohan and Ina Rae Hark (London and New York: Routledge, 1997); Ewa Mazierska and Laura Rascaroli, Crossing New Europe: Postmodern Travel and the European Road Movie (London and New York: Wallflower Press, 2006); Laderman, Driving Visions: Exploring the Road Movie; Katie Mills, The Road Story and the Rebel: Moving through Film, Fiction, and Television (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 2006); Devin Orgeron, From Muybridge and Méliès to Lynch and Kiarostami (Houndmills and New York: Palgrave MacMillan, 2008).

30 By stressing that the European reality is informed by “a mosaic of nations, cultures, languages and roads, which are separated by geographical, political and economic boundaries and customs,” the authors Mazierska and Rascaroli see differences to American road movies. “In European films the emphasis is either placed on crossing national borders or, in case of national travel, on the landscape that the voyagers traverse…” They say that the mode of transportation varies among public transportation (busses, trains, etc.), hitchhiking, and travelling on foot. Instead of being an outlaw or rebel, the traveler in European road movies is, rather, an “ordinary citizen […] who is on the move, often for practical reasons (for work, immigration, commuting, or holiday-making).” Mazierska and Rascaroli, Crossing New Europe: Postmodern Travel and the European Road Movie, 5.

60 Apart from the origins, traditions, and developments of the road movie as a genre, Mazierska and Rascaroli analyze contemporary European road movies as a particularly prominent way of coping with the current European realities. The authors argue that “[i]n the last twenty to thirty years, European travel films and road movies have mirrored the ever-increasing mobility of the population and have served as a reflection on the many and elusive shifts of borders, identities and cultures that we have been experiencing.”31 They suggest that European travel films “constitute a multiform and dense body of work that offers an extraordinary lens through which to look at the changing realities of the continent and of its cinema.”32 This contemporary, postmodern, post-1989 Europe is characterized, as suggested by the authors, by an “extreme mobility.”33 They see the causes for a new form of migration in geo-political, economic, and social shifts and changes. Glasnost, the end of the Cold War, the advent of post-Fordism, the strengthening of the European Union, the disappearance of some customs and borders, the wars in the , and unrest in the so-called “Third World” are mentioned among many other factors that informed the changes of the last two to three decades in Europe.34 The authors stress that wars and economic and political uncertainties in the Balkans, but also outside of Europe, have led to an increased number of European and non-European immigrants and refugees in European countries. Changes and shifts in political borders have led to a novel geo- political conception of Europe. “The end of Communism not only put in motion people

31 Ibid., 9.

32 Ibid.

33 Ibid., 138.

34 Ibid., 139ff.

61 from outside and inside of Europe, but also impacted on the socio-geographical aspect of the continent, and ultimately on the idea of Europe itself.”35 (However, it should be noted at this point that already before the end of the cold war, there were mass migrations to Western Europe that perpetually changed the demographics in Europe and thus challenged “the idea of Europe itself;” these include, for example, post-WWII work migration to northern Europe, or postcolonial migration to France, Britain, the , and so forth throughout the second half of the 20th century.) Mazierska and Rascaroli further suggest that while the post-communist East/West boundary slowly dissolves in Europe, the new fortified boundary of the North/South becomes the new divide in Europe.36 Ethnic studies scholar Fatima El-Tayeb and film studies scholar Yosefa Loshitzky back the claim that “Fortress Europe” has fixed external borders, especially to the South.37 Certainly, Akın’s films - In July in particular - could be seen as a challenge to these divides and dividing lines.38 Akın’s filmic characters travel, legally and illegally, predominantly back-and-forth in these directions: northwest to southeast. Most certainly, Akın’s In July is not an immigration film per se, it has a holiday travel narrative. Yet, Mazierska’s and Rascaroli’s descriptions of European immigration mobility still feature

35 Ibid., 141.

36 Ibid.

37 El-Tayeb, “‘The Birth of a European Public’: Migration, Postnationality, and Race in the Uniting of Europe,” 651; Loshitzky, Screening Strangers, 2.

38 In Akın’s films Turkish illegal travelers such as Ayten in The Edge of Heaven, or urban business women such as Selma in Head-On travel from Turkey to Germany as other characters in the films travel from Germany to Turkey. Akın introduces a multidirectional travel narrative, which includes a diverse palette of travels from various backgrounds. His depiction of Turkish travelers lacks the earlier pitiful depiction of Turkish economic or political migrants from Turkey to Germany.

62 in In July, particularly in the scenes depicting Budapest. In Budapest, former Yugoslavian traveler Luna as well as the ethnically ambiguous bartender are either working or traversing through Eastern Europe. Also, their knowledge of German hints at possible stays in or connections to Germany. Luna in particular becomes a metaphor for the recent Balkan history, which has mobilized many people, either forcing them to move in a war-torn country or permitting them to move after the fall of Communism. In a new mobile Europe, Mazierska and Rascaroli suggest that films about immigration also changed enormously. While earlier depictions of immigration focused on showing a move from a so-called “old home to a new home,” some newer films such as Michael Haneke’s Code Unknown (Code Inconnu, 2000) and Pawel Pawlikowski’s Last Resort (2000) “show that home no longer exists in the sense of a permanent hub.”39 Luna and the bar tender in In July could be seen as examples of this kind of mobility. Luna, for example, is depicted as knowing many of the people in a club in Budapest personally. This hints at her familiarity with the place and the people. However, she also pretends not to know any Hungarian and drives across the country in a military vehicle with “EX” written on top of the former Yugoslavian license plate: “EX-Yugoslavia.” The petty criminal, romanticized “vagabond” travels across the Balkans, it seems, and works and stays in different places as she pleases. For my reading of In July as a European road movie, the definitions and discussions of current European road movies, as well as the current European realities as outlined by Mazierska and Rascaroli, provide a larger context. However, while the scholars provide extensive and clarifying discussions and analyses of their filmic

39 Michael Haneke, Code Inconnu, Drama, Romance (Leasure Time Features, 2000); Mazierska and Rascaroli, Crossing New Europe: Postmodern Travel and the European Road Movie, 142; Pawel Pawlikowski, Last Resort, Drama, 2000. 63 material, they do not discuss any Turkish-German productions, which provide yet another component of contemporary European road movies. Looking at particular filmic details, Akın’s In July fits in many ways the authors’ definitions of European road movies (“ordinary citizen” as travelers; “mosaic of nations;” depiction of multiple languages and regions, and characters travelling by bus, car, on foot, etc.). However, in many ways the film is a combination, a hybrid form of US and European road movies. In July displays vast and open landscapes as well as the street that symbolizes “the unknown,” “adventure,” and “freedom,” which often have been seen as quintessentially American.40 The European aspects of the road movie are exposed by following the narrative of In July navigating and traversing through nation-states, regions, and cities of northern and eastern Europe. In that sense, In July is similar to Mazierska’s and Rascaroli’s references to contemporary European cinematic form as such. It is a film which has “the ability to mirror and interpret phenomena such as shifting European borders; the formation of new personal, regional and transnational identities; the transformation of communities; and, more generally, the character of movement in postmodernity.”41 I argue that Akın projects a cinematic vision of a mobile Europe with fragile borders through the adaptation of the road movie genre for a large audience. Through the use of generic material from road movies and the focus on mobility and movement in In July, the film portrays a dynamic and flexible Europe. Europe becomes a space, which is traversable, connected, and multidirectional (predominantly for European travelers). As

40 Steven Cohan and Ina Rae Hark are convinced that the road movie is “like the musical or the Western, a Hollywood genre that catches peculiarly American dreams, tensions, and anxieties, even when imported by the motion picture industries of other nations.” David Laderman also follows Cohan and Hark in classifying the road movie as inherently American. Laderman, Driving Visions: Exploring the Road Movie, 2, 13; Cohan and Hark, “Introduction,” 2.

41 Mazierska and Rascaroli, Crossing New Europe: Postmodern Travel and the European Road Movie, 2.

64 typical for European road movies, movement in In July is depicted via different modes of transportation. These provide for both a depiction of different levels of speed as well as experiences of the European space as connected. By traveling on the ground (as opposed to flying), the “map” of Europe becomes more visible; the European space becomes physically experienced by the travelers. This allows for a more immediate and tactile experience of a connected European space. For instance, while Hamburg is mainly experienced through walking, other cities such as Budapest are seen through high-speed car races and street chases. At the same time, many rural and agrarian areas are predominantly experienced through walking, traveling on a boat, or riding in a car or truck in a much slower motion. Ultimately, the various modes of transportation lead to a diversified perception and experience of the European space (land- and city spaces). Not only the physical movement of the travelers and their modes of transportation, but also the movement of the narrative is dynamic. The film begins in medias res in Bulgaria and jumps back in time and place to Hamburg with a flashback narrative. Additionally, within the chronological narrative of the film, there is no linear travel; some travels go back and forth due to various mishaps (for example in Bulgaria or Hungary). The title inserts in each sequence indicate travel from one place to another in documentary fashion. This produces both connectivity between the scenes (therefore, a connection between the places), and an orientation of the viewer. The travelers in In July are another important component of European mobility. They visualize the continuity of European space through their movement. While the film depicts various sorts of travelers and migrants, the main protagonists are four young, urban travelers in Europe. Their movement is not financially or politically, but rather emotionally motivated. For the most part, they freely move between nation-states for personal reasons. Isa and Melek individually travel from Germany to Turkey for a family 65 burial with plans to meet each other in Istanbul. Daniel’s travel to Istanbul is motivated by his desire to meet his newly discovered love interest Melek. Finally, Juli joins Daniel on his way to Istanbul to eventually gain his love and affection. Thus, emotional involvement leads to a dynamic, physical movement of the characters, chasing each other across Europe. Ultimately, all characters are put into motion and through their movement help to draw a map of Europe, moving from Berlin to Hamburg and from Hamburg, through Eastern Europe, to Istanbul and beyond. The four principal characters, the European travelers, help to construct the European space as a traversable and navigable space. Akın’s travelers become examples for the new, young faces of Europe. This is achieved by, first, reversing cultural stereotypes, and, thereby, allowing for a diverse face of Europe, and, second, by focusing on their mobility, and thereby, subtly underscoring a mobile and decentralized Europe. Already the opening sequence in Bulgaria suggests a play on cultural stereotypes and viewer expectations. After the establishing shot of In July, the first sequence continues with a man in black shades and snakeskin boots getting out of his car (Isa). He looks at the solar eclipse, which caused the darkening of the sky. After the eclipse, when the sunlight is fully established again, the action continues. Isa is portrayed as peculiar: he has a scar on his head and a gold tooth in his mouth. He moves suspiciously toward the trunk of his car, looking around to see if anybody is watching him. While he sprays air freshener on a dead body, which is hidden in his trunk, a second man approaches him, Daniel. The last part of the sequence begins with fast-cut back-and-forth quarrel scenes between Daniel and Isa. Daniel needs a ride to Turkey, but Isa is not interested in a travel companion. After accidentally hitting Daniel with his car, he carries him into his vehicle and continues his travel. When he notices that Daniel is not seriously injured, he asks him to leave. Eventually, Isa decides to give him a ride and both men continue their journey 66 together. Daniel explains to his fellow traveler that he is on the way to meet his love interest (Melek) and the sequence ends with him beginning to explain the reason for his journey. Casting, acting, and costume are three formal elements that address the initial play on cultural stereotypes in In July. Scholarly work as well as popular reviews addressed Akın’s use of stars such as Moritz Bleibtreu and Christiane Paul in In July.42 Both are popular, “bankable” contemporary actors in Germany;43 and Bleibtreu, additionally, has a recognition factor among global audiences through his part in Tom Tykwer’s successful film Lola rennt (Run Lola Run, 1998).44 Generally, Akın’s use of Bleibtreu and Paul has been accredited to making in July a commercially successful film in Germany and beyond.45 While this is most certainly a valid assumption, there is a need for further consideration of this and other casting choices in In July. I believe that the casting and star personas in the film, ultimately, also help to further undermine persisting cultural stereotypes by disseminating a notion of an unstable, ambiguous, and fluctuating European space and a so-called Europeanness. I believe the casting of Bleibtreu and Paul, the “bankable” popular actors, as well as the casting of less popular actors of the time,

42 See for example: Berghahn, “No Place like Home? Or Impossible Homecomings in the Films of Fatih Akin,” 144; Ann Hornaday, “Two for the Road, Heading In Different Directions,” The Washington Post, May 10, 2002, sec. STYLE; Pg. C05, accessed May 13, 2009, http://www.lexisnexis.com.ezproxy.lib.utexas.edu/us/lnacademic/frame.do?tokenKey=rsh- 20.112223.8830473249&target=results_listview_resultsNav&reloadEntirePage=true&rand=124223494338 8&returnToKey=20_T6554376451&parent=docview; Burns, “Turkish-German Cinema: From Cultural Resistance to Transnational Cinema?,” 146.

43 Burns, “Turkish-German Cinema: From Cultural Resistance to Transnational Cinema?,” 146.

44 Tom Tykwer, Lola rennt, Tragicomedy (Bavaria Film International: Dept. of Gavaria Media GmbH, 1998).

45 Berghahn, “No Place like Home? Or Impossible Homecomings in the Films of Fatih Akin,” 144.

67 Mehmet Kurtuluş and Idil Üner, play a significant role in the diffusion of Akın’s new visions of Europe and Europeanness.46 The male protagonists Isa and Daniel share certain features in In July. The physical aspects of Bleibtreu, who plays Daniel, a German, are similar to Kurtuluş’, who plays Isa, a Turkish-German. Both actors are of similar height and weight, and have dark hair and dark eyes, so that ambiguity about their ethnic background is implied. Also, Bleibtreu’s role as “Abdul the Arab” in Thomas Jahn’s 1997 film Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door certainly stresses the ambiguity of his physical features, showing him as a versatile actor who can convincingly play an Arab-German as well as a German character.47 Kurtuluş’ prior acting career was dominated by minor roles playing Turkish-German characters in TV productions, until he became critically acclaimed for his part in Akın’s 1998 feature Kurz und Schmerzlos (Short Sharp Shock). In Short Sharp Shock he played a lead role as a Turkish-German gangster, for which he received a Bronze Leopard at the International Film Festival of Locarno and an Adolf Grimme award.48 This prior role might shape initial perceptions about the character he plays in In July. In the opening sequence, Isa and Daniel are portrayed with varied and contradictory features. Initially, Isa’s acting seems stylized. Whereas the less stylized elements of his acting are shown in his eventual interest and care about Daniel or his curiosity about the solar eclipse, the stylized parts of his acting are grounded in his tough-

46 At this point, I will concentrate on the four main protagonists of the film. However, the casting of Serbian born Branka Katić, Hungarian born Gábor Salinger, or Turkish born Birol Ünel, among others, is a similar way of showcasing the diverse face and sound of contemporary Europe.

47 Thomas Jahn, Knockin’ On Heaven’s Door, Tragicomedy, Road Movie (Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures Germany/Munich, 1997).

48 “IMDB Resume: Mehmet Kurtulus,” IMDB The Internet Movie Database, December 7, 2009, accessed March 27, 2011, http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0476011/resume.

68 guy-gangster image (this is supported by costume and attire). Isa’s character seems to be stylized when acting out a certain stereotype of a Turkish-German gangster. Dressed in a pair of jeans, snakeskin boots, black, tight shirt, and black shades, Isa fits a stereotypical depiction of a second-generation Turkish-German gangster type.49 Other elements that ground an initial gangster depiction of Isa are props and design. Although the set and design is minimal (it is an exterior, unknown setting), the props of Isa’s car and his attire are meaning-laden. Isa drives an old Mercedes (a stereotypical car of Turkish guest workers), which has a blue eye hanging on the front mirror (the Nazar boncuk: Turkish talisman against the evil eye).50 The audio is a popular song by Turkish pop star Sezen Aksu, “Değer mi?” (“Is It Worth It?”). Thus, the car and its decor are full of cliché props of a Turkish (-German) character. The gangster persona of Isa is enforced in combination with the dead body in his car, his use of a butterfly knife, his propensity towards fire, and his initial aggressive behavior towards Daniel.51 Daniel’s costume and desperate need of transportation, however, fits the stereotype of an illegal immigrant. Dark-haired and unshaven, Daniel wears a dirty white shirt and pants. Daniel seems to be a confused but determined young man who needs help with his travel arrangements.

49 His costume seems to be a relic of the 1990s Kanak movement, rap and hip-hop culture. Starting with Feridun Zaimoğlu’s Kanak Sprack and Abschaum in the literary world, gangster images and Kanak style also emerged in filmic works. Lars Becker’s Kanak Attack, Akin’s Kurz und schmerzos are only two prominent examples. Randall Halle and Barbara Mennel also discuss the criminalized and ghettoized depiction of Turkish-German youth in film and general media of the 1990s. Halle, German Film After Germany, 143; Mennel, “Bruce Lee in Kreuzberg and Scarface in Altona: Transnational Auteurism and Ghettocentrism in Thomas Arslan’s Brothers and Sisters and Fatih Akin’s Short Sharp Shock,” 136, 137.

50 There are several Turkish films about Turkish guest workers returning to Turkey with a Mercedes. See, for example, Okan Tunç, Fikrimin Ince Gülü - Sari Mercedes (Odak Film, 1987).

51 Isa uses the air freshener and a lighter to produce a fire spray, with which he tries to scare Daniel away.

69 The audience is invited to ask why Daniel, a schoolteacher, looks “wie ‘nen Penner” (like a bum) or like a stereotypical illegal immigrant in the middle of Bulgaria, as well as why the gangster-style Turkish-German Isa has a body in his car, yet is ultimately nice and willing to help Daniel.52 The costume and behavior of both characters use and break stereotypes about both bourgeois and Turkish-German characters, which are more directly played out in later parts of the film. The audience is tricked into believing that Isa is a prototypical Turkish gangster. Also, the portrayal of a German high school teacher as not proper and chaotic might go against stereotypes about Studienräte (tenured teachers at German high schools).53 Thereby, the audience might be confronted with their own stereotypes when they find out about Daniel’s and Isa’s background. The film opens with a play on cultural stereotypes and, therefore, might suggest that the new, young European faces, who are the travelers and navigators of contemporary Europe, are not easily categorizable in national or ethnic terms. Similarly, Paul and Üner, who appear in later sequences, share physical as well as lifestyle similarities in their film roles (Juli and Melek). Juli and Melek represent free- spirited, independent, open-minded, and flexible characters. Deniz Göktürk describes Üner’s prior role in Akın’s Short Sharp Shock as “independent and strong-minded,” which echoes her role in In July.54 Economically mobile, Melek does not strike the audience as a victimized Turkish daughter; nor does she seem to be restricted in her

52 In July, chapter 1, 00:06:28.

53 There is a long tradition in German literature and culture to depict German teachers as uptight and overtly proper. In film, this tradition also includes the transgression of boundaries. See: Helmut Weiss, Die Feuerzangenbowle, Comedy (Pathe Distribution, 1944); Josef von Sternberg, Der Blaue Engel, Drama, Musical (Transit Film/Munich, 1930).

54 Göktürk, “Turkish Women on German Streets: Closure and Exposure in Transnational Cinema,” 72.

70 movements; she travels from Berlin to Hamburg, walks across Hamburg-Altona, takes a flight to Istanbul and a bus ride to Edirne.55 Additionally, similar to the other two protagonists, Juli and Melek are attractive as well as racially and ethnically ambiguous. All four principal travelers speak German fluently, and have an unproblematic relationship to one another in terms of race and ethnicity. (Unprivileged ethnicities and nationalities within the EU are briefly referenced at the end of the film.56) Daniel falls in love with Melek. Upon asking the meaning of her name, Daniel is not taken aback by Melek’s Turkish background and follows her to Istanbul. Juli does not differentiate among nationalities either. Bavaria, for that matter, is more foreign than Budapest, for example.57 Superficially, all principal actors represent examples of contemporary visions of ideal European characters, of a new, mobile, and flexible Europeanness. Ultimately, in the course of the film’s narrative, they are portrayed as open-minded, diverse, tolerant, and cosmopolitan. However, at the same time, these cosmopolitan travelers are also illegal border crossers and facilitators of illegal border crossings for dead bodies that

55 As the scholarship has pointed out, in early Turkish-German films, Turkish femininity has often been depicted as victimized and oppressed by a patriarchal society. Films such as Başer’s 1986 40 Square Meters of Germany and Sanders-Brahms’s 1975 Shirin’s Wedding are two iconic examples for such discourses of victimization of Turkish women. For further details see, for example, Göktürk, “Beyond Paternalism: Turkish German Traffic in Cinema.”; Deniz Göktürk, “Turkish Delight - German Fright. Unsettling Oppositions in Transnational Cinema,” EIPCP: European Institute for Progressive Cultural Policies, October 2000, accessed January 15, 2008, http://eipcp.net/transversal/0101/goektuerk/en; Göktürk, “Migration und Kino- Subnationale Mitleidskultur oder Transnationale Rollenspiele?”.

56 Isa expresses criticism of limited and restricted visit and travel permits issued by the German government to Turks who want to visit their relatives in Germany. This episode addresses the exclusion of certain countries from European privileges such as the “freedom of movement.”

57 In chapter 5, Juli’s female friend and Daniel refer to Bavaria as a place where they reject to spend more time than necessary. In July, chapter 5, 00:21:04 and 00:24:31.

71 represent the problematic restrictions of movement to/in Europe from non-European places.58 Ultimately, however, Akın manages to depict a flexible and dynamic European space, especially through the travelers. Through their movement, legal and illegal, they visualize the connectedness of the European space by walking and driving through various metropolitan and rural areas, though European city- and landscapes.

City- and Landscapes: Visual Spaces in Europe

Three major European cities that are portrayed in In July are Hamburg, Budapest, and Istanbul. Although the city spaces are marked by their differences due to their individual histories, geographies, and economies, they are revealed as similar and connected. Akın’s cityscapes are predominantly marked by an ethnically diverse multitude of characters, musical mixtures juxtaposed with historic and national landmarks.59 Ultimately, these cityscapes offer the audience a visual and aural experience of classic European cities, which become the backdrop for the love stories within the film’s narrative.60 My discussion of European cities in In July is primarily focused on the

58 For a discussion of human trafficking in the new Europe (and its cinema) see: Brown, Iordanova, and Torchin, Moving People, Moving Images: Cinema And Trafficking In the New Europe.

59 In their book on postmodern, European cinematic cities, Mazierska and Rascaroli discuss the similarities and differences in contemporary European cities. In talking about actual postmodern European cities, they say that these cities are marked by cosmopolitanism, by an ethnically mixed population, a postindustrial economy and landscape, and by graffiti (11). Mazierska and Rascaroli add that different lifestyles exist side by side “in a chaotic and fragmented manner” (16, 17). However, the authors conclude their discussion of European cities by saying that these cities nonetheless obtain their individualities. “In Europe almost each city seems to have developed its own, particular postmodernity, in accordance with its specific and original economic, cultural, social and ethnic history. Moscow, London, Warsaw, Blackpool, Naples, Marseilles, Madrid, Berlin are all profoundly different and original, even if they belong to the same global, late- capitalist, society that has produced the postmodern condition.” Ewa Mazierska and Laura Rascaroli, From Moscow to Madrid: Postmodern Cities, European Cinema (London: I.B. Tauris, 2003), 11, 16, 17, 24.

60 According to Yosefa Loshitzky, cities play a key role in identifying Europe and Europeanness, especially, in contemporary films on diaspora and migration. In these films the post-card image of European capitals are often exchanged with marginalized figures at the edges of the cities. Loshitzk states 72 city by night and the city during the day. By specifically emphasizing entertainment venues and market places in Hamburg and Budapest, the film grounds the similarities and parallelisms that connect these two European cities. The nightlife sequence in Hamburg begins with a close-up of the lead singer of the local band Niños con Bombas, just beginning the Spanish song “Velocidad” (“Speed”) with a loud scream straight into the camera. The camera zooms out showing the open-air stage of the band and then cuts to Daniel who is hesitant to enter the music venue. Eventually, accompanied by the rhythmic and upbeat song, the camera closely follows Daniel, almost adopting his perspective, as he slowly moves into the vibrant entertainment venue. People dancing, drinking, and talking are positioned on either side of the frame. Daniel moves timidly through the young partygoers. Disheartened, because he is ignored at the bar, he leaves the happy crowd. Meanwhile the band, which is now shown with a case of the local “Astra” beer underneath its bass, has introduced their new song “Ramona.”61 The singer says, “Ramona” is a “Liebeslied,” a love song that goes beyond borders.62 Shortly after, still hearing the diegetic sound of “Ramona,” Daniel quickly regains his optimism once he meets Melek outside of the bar.

that in diasporic or migration films the journeys of hope often end in the capitals of Europe, for both first- and second-generation migrants. “Yet instead of celebrating or invoking the commodified postcard image of these famous cities and their monumental landmarks, these films often not only deconstruct them, pushing the mise-en-scène to their geographical and symbolic margins and peripheries, but also turn them from globally recycled iconic images of fantasy and glamour into non-places.” Akın complicates classic “post-card images” of Europe without focusing on the miserable conditions of (illegal) migration. In his films so-called “non-places” become a part of Europe. Loshitzky, Screening Strangers, 45, 46.

61 Astra is a popular (low budget) local beer from Hamburg.

62 The lead singer of the band Niños con Bombas introduces the Liebeslied (love song) in a slightly Hispanic accent. Im Juli, chapter 3, 00:13:17.

73 The opening shot of the Hamburg nightlife sequence introduces the nocturnal city of Hamburg as a sight of musical entertainment. The vibrant music becomes a part of the city and of the young metropolitan audience. The Hamburg-based band Niños con Bombas features members from Chile, Brazil, and Germany, but at the same time represents the local Hamburg music scene. The lyrics of the upbeat music in this scene are in Spanish, true to the band’s habit of presenting musically and lyrically mixed forms. Most of their lyrics are in Spanish, but they often incorporate English and French to their songs, which are ska, jazz, punk, and cabaret influenced.63 Through the opening scene, Akın establishes the major components of the city: ethnic diversity, cultural multiplicity, and dynamic interrelations of the people, places, and entities that create the local city space. These components of the city are reiterated during Daniel’s trek across the nocturnal city of Hamburg, of Hamburg-Altona in particular. Together with his acquaintance Melek, Daniel walks through various sights in Altona that represent iconic places in Hamburg. These are all marked as ethnically diverse and represent today’s “global city.”64 They visit a Turkish restaurant, which has an oriental décor, depicting the Bosporus Bridge in Istanbul. The diegetic sound of Turkish classical music (featuring the sound of the classic instruments saz and ud, which are central to Turkish musical

63 “Niños con Bombas,” last.fm, accessed January 31, 2010, http://www.last.fm/music/Ni%C3%B1os+Con+Bombas.

64 For further discussions and details of multiethnicity and migrant populations in European “global cities” please see: Elizabeth Meehan, “Rethinking the Path to European Citizenship,” in Migration and Cultural Inclusion in the European City, ed. William J.V. Neill and Hanns-Uve Schwedler (New York: Palgrave MacMillan, 2007), 17-32; William J.V. Neill and Hanns-Uve Schwedler, eds., Migration and Cultural Inclusion in the European City (New York: Palgrave MacMillan, 2007).

74 traditions) accompanies the couple’s conversation.65 Later, they take a walk to the “Elbstrand” (Elbe River Beach between Blankenese and Altona). Here, the couple receives Astra beer from a man with a presumably Eastern European accent. Later, Melek sings a song in Turkish, “Güneşim” (“My Sun”). The city allows for sonic openness and lingual, ethnic, and musical mixes to create polyphony. This polyphonic city space offers varied sensual, aural, and visual experiences, including sensual awakenings. Through the interrelations and connections between people, places, and entities in In July, the city becomes a cosmopolitan venue. This cosmopolitanism emerges with the sights and experiences of ethnic difference in the cinematic European city. Mazierska and Rascaroli see cosmopolitanism as one of the major components of the European postmodern city, which displays “varied life-styles that exist side by side, in a chaotic and fragmented manner.”66 Cultural studies scholar Mica Nava and sociologist Mike Savage et al. discuss the rapid emergence of the discourse on cosmopolitanism in the social sciences as well as in the humanities within the last decade. Savage et al. see cosmopolitanism as intrinsically linked to globalization. It is reflected in a “willingness to engage with the other” and to have a global awareness in general;67 Nava even talks about a mainstream of cosmopolitanism in today’s global cities. Generally, for the

65 For the history, practices, and detailed definitions of these musical instruments please see: Johanna Spector et al., “Grove Music Online: Saz,” Oxford Music Online, 2007, accessed February 18, 2010, http://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/subscriber/article/grove/music/47032?q=saz&search=quick&pos=1&_ start=1#firsthit; Christian Poché, “Grove Music Online: ’Ūd,” Oxford Music Online, 2007, accessed February 18, 2010, http://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/subscriber/article/grove/music/28694?q=ud&search=quick&pos=1&_s tart=1#firsthit.

66 Mazierska and Rascaroli, From Moscow to Madrid, 16ff.

67 Mike Savage, Gaynor Bagnall, and Brian Longhurst, Globalization & Belonging (London: Sage, 2005), 181.

75 authors, cosmopolitanism signifies openness to the world.68 This kind of global openness is prominent in Akın’s local places, which are, in fact, the product of local/global networks. In Cosmopolitical Claims, Germanist Venkat Mani attests to “Turkey's intellectual presence in Europe” and explores through literary voices, “aesthetic and political claims that unsettle concepts of home, belonging, and cultural citizenship" in Germany and Europe.69 I argue that Akın similarly defends a multiethnic, cosmopolitan Europe in his films, which is “open” to Turkey. Akın’s cinematic cosmopolitanism is not a happy-go-lucky multiculturalism. It is a cosmopolitanism, which is not blind to violence, deportation of migrants, manslaughter, or terrorism.70 While it connotes “openness to the world,” it also exhibits aspects of the at times harsh realities of the characters’ lives. These are exemplified more in-depth in Head-On and The Edge of Heaven. This “realistic” cosmopolitanism becomes a grid in Akın’s cinematic Europe without being romanticized, beyond good and evil. In July, for example, depicts a cosmopolitanism, which is linguistically and culturally “open to the world,” but it also includes political themes such as the difficulties of legal bureaucratic and illegal border crossings.71

68 Mica Nava, Visceral Cosmopolitanism: Gender, Culture and the Normalization of Difference (Oxford and New York: Berg, 2007), 3, 4.

69 B. Venkat Mani, Cosmopolitical Claims: Turkish-German Literature from Nadolny to Pamuk (Iowa City: University of Iowa Press, 2007), 8.

70 In In July, but also in Akın’s other feature films, there are references to illegal border crossings, to murder, to conflicts with the authorities due to immigration or foreigner status of the protagonists or their acquaintances. In In July, this is depicted, for example, through the multiple illegal border crossings and through the story about Isa’s uncle who was not allowed to stay longer with his family due to governmental regulations about visit permits.

71 Here, these are shown in a comedic style due to the genre, lacking the seriousness of Head-On and The Edge of Heaven.

76 Just like the Hamburg scenes, a diverse and vibrant atmosphere marks the night scenes in Budapest. The club in Budapest, to which Luna (an interim travel companion of Daniel played by Branka Katić) takes Daniel for dinner, turns out to be a similar place for tactile and aural experiences of the cosmopolitan city.72 The nightlife scene in Budapest, set in an underground dance club, is infused with dance music, drugs, and petty criminality. The sequence begins with Luna and Daniel navigating through twisted paths into a Hungarian club. The place, filled with punks and other guests, has a glossy, polished bar and a dance floor. Here, the ethnically ambiguous Luna and the equally ambiguous bar tender (Birol Ünel) provide Daniel’s dinner (fish sticks). Shortly after, a close-up of Luna’s hand shows her pouring narcotics into Daniel’s drink. From here, the sequence continues depicting the scenery in slow motion, suggesting Daniel’s narcotized perception of the place. Daniel joins the people on the dance floor, dancing to the tunes of “Suicide Swing” performed by J*Let featuring Nero Gato.73 It is not clear whether this psychedelic song is diegetic, belonging to the underground bar or nondiegetic, reflecting Daniel’s narcotized condition and change of perception. The sequence ends with Daniel being thrown out of Luna’s car, after she has seduced Daniel and stole his ring. The Hungarian club offers a similarly pulsating entertainment venue like the open-air club in Hamburg. Some of the characters seem edgier, wearing flamboyant outfits and hairstyles. Ultimately, the characters are as diverse as the music. In Budapest,

72 The nightlife scene in Budapest mainly takes place in the nightclub and Luna’s car. In July, 00:44:50- 00:51:30.

73 According to an e-mail correspondence with Anja Padge from Wuestefilm and Klaus Maeck from Corazón International, the song features composer Gordon Bannier (who is a Hamburg-based musician) and actor Adam Bousdouko (who is a Hamburg-Altona-based actor and longtime friend of Fatih Akın, who also plays in Soul Kitchen, Head-On, and Short Sharp Shock). Anja Padge, “Re-2: Filmarchiv und Dissertation über Fatih Akin,” February 15, 2010; Klaus Maeck, “Re: Frage zu ‘Im Juli’-Musik für Dissertation über Akin,” February 23, 2010. 77 Luna, who seems to be a “vagabond” from former Yugoslavia, the barkeeper in the club, and, later in the sequence, a street vendor represent segments of the mixed population in the Balkans. The casting of Serbian born Branka Katić, Hungarian born Gábor Salinger, and Turkish born Birol Ünel, among others, is a way of visualizing the diversity of Eastern Europe in Budapest. The languages spoken include Serbo-Croatian, Hungarian, German, and English, suggesting a (linguistically) cosmopolitan environment. In contrast to this aural cosmopolitanism are the fish sticks that Daniel eats. The fish sticks are typical (German) children’s fast food, indicating Daniel’s initial naïveté and immaturity. (This changes in the morning, when Daniel begins to mature.) Budapest at night becomes a place for sensual encounters for Daniel. While in Hamburg Daniel discovered his love interest Melek, in Budapest, he is lured by Luna’s sexuality. While the cities at night are depicted as venues for entertainment and music, the cities during the day offer a glimpse at architectural sights. The marketplace, symbolic of meeting places of different demographic populations in cities and villages since the early modern period, features prominently in both European cities.74 It is the starting point for further sights of the city. In Hamburg, the flea market is located in an open plaza at an intersection between historic apartment buildings and bars. It depicts colorful stands with a multitude of people, including punks and Goth style youngsters, shopping or selling items such as jewelry, CDs, and clothing.75 Daniel is shown walking through the market

74 Michaela Fenske discusses the development of markets in the early modern age. Although Fenske focuses on the annual fair and cattle market in Hildesheim, she also gives a general survey about the market place in the early modern age in German speaking regions. Michaela Fenske, Marktkultur in der Frühen Neuzeit. Wirtschaft, Macht und Unterhaltung auf einem Städtischen Jahr- und Viehmarkt (Köln: Böhlau Verlag, 2006).

75 The flea market becomes a microcosm for cosmopolitanism. Diverse people are selling and buying a mix and match of items.

78 on his way home from work. It is here, that Juli, a street vendor, encourages Daniel to buy a ring with a Mayan symbol of the sun. Finally, Juli hands Daniel a flyer (in Spanish) to join an event with the band Niños con Bombas.76 After the bright and lively market interlude, the scene continues with Daniel through Hamburg-Ottensen. The scene introduces the viewers to the architecture of 19th century apartment buildings in Ottensen, a neighborhood where Akın grew up and where he lives today with his family. Ottensen, originally an independent town of farmers and carpenters since the 14th century, was annexed to Altona in the 19th century, and, through Altona, to Hamburg in 1937.77 With the foundation of industrial factories in Ottensen in the mid-19th century, the area began to prosper. In the 1960s, however, the factories were relocated and as a result left an ever more impoverishing Ottensen behind. During the following decades, the majority of citizens in Ottensen were lower income and immigrant families as well as college students. Today, after the borough has experienced major financial investments, it displays one of the most vivid neighborhoods in Hamburg.78 The historic buildings in In July reflect the prosperous times of the borough from the previous century, but also the contemporary diverse, multiethnic citizenry, predominantly resulting from the more recent history of the neighborhood. At home, on the stairs, Daniel meets his Afro-German neighbor Kodjo (Ernest Herrmann). Kodjo is

76 The flyer depicts a field of sunflowers and states in Spanish “Niños con Bombas, Fiesta del Sol, esta noche 21h, Bernstorfstr. 123, en el patio” (Children with bombs (band name), summer party, tonight at 9pm, Bernstorfstr. 123, in the patio). 00:09:40.

77 All following information about (historic and contemporary) Ottensen are form the borough’s web page: “Reiseführer,” ottensen.de Die Stadtteilseite, accessed October 30, 2010, http://www.ottensen.de/reisefuehrer/.

78 Akın talks about his family and friends and how he grew up in Altona (Ottensen) in the first half of his documentary: Akın, Wir haben vergessen zurückzukehren.

79 dressed in a Jamaican sports jersey, has hair spotted with dye, smokes a bong, and talks in a fake Jamaican-English accent about his travel to Jamaica. Asking Daniel to house sit for him, however, he quickly switches to his native Hamburg dialect. Kodjo’s playful code switching is an ironic reversal of multicultural attitudes. The interior of the building, colored in orange and blue paint, further relativizes the illusion of the 19th century atmosphere created through the facade of the buildings. It allows for a more contemporary portrayal of the place. The house, which is reminiscent of historic Ottensen through its architecture, is portrayed as a place for contemporary, ethnically diverse Hamburg citizens such as Kodjo.79 In Budapest, the market scene is similarly colorful and crowded. It depicts a variety of goods and a multitude of people. Here, Daniel witnesses how Luna sells the ring that she previously stole from him to a Hungarian street vendor. After Daniel retrieves his ring from the vendor by snatching it, the action extends from the market scene into the city. A car race scene through the historic old town of Budapest leads the audience through Hungary’s 18th/19th century architecture. This includes a long shot of the famous lánchíd (Chain Bridge) crossing the Danube River.80 The Chain Bridge is a 19th century piece of architecture, which links the city’s two historic parts, Buda (West) and Pest (East). The chase comes to an end when the Hungarian police stops Luna’s car. Initially, they ask for Luna’s passport and nationality. They eventually refrain from

79 El-Tayeb discusses the assumption that Europe is perceived as predominantly white, even when its mutiethnicity is accepted. I believe that Kodjo represents a move beyond a white multiethnicity. In his later film Soul Kitchen, Akın incorporates a larger Afro-German community in a sequence. El-Tayeb, “‘The Birth of a European Public’: Migration, Postnationality, and Race in the Uniting of Europe,” 652.

80 Daniel crosses the Chain Bridge once he has stolen Luna’s vehicle. In July, 00:50:05. The bridge was designed by English Engineer William Tierney Clark in 1839 and it was opened in 1849. 80 asking further questions mesmerized by her beauty; nationality, once more, loses relevance. Although the scenes in Hamburg and Budapest are short and only represent aspects of the travel narrative of In July, Akın manages to portray ethnically, musically, and architecturally diverse and vibrant cities. At the same time, Hamburg’s cosmopolitanism peacefully coincides with its northern characteristics, as portrayed in the scenes at the Elbe, and Budapest is portrayed succinctly with visuals of specific neighborhoods. These cities, as representatives of classical European cities with old towns, market places, local, historic buildings, and a large river along their cityscapes, are, at the same time, places for culturally, linguistically, and musically diverse sceneries in which locality is emphasized. Doreen Massey’s discussions about space and place relate to In July’s projection of European local city spaces. In arguing for a progressive and global idea of locality and place, Massey states that:

[i]nstead, …, of thinking of places as areas with boundaries around, they can be imagined as articulated moments in networks of social relations and understandings, but where a large proportion of those relations, experiences and understandings are constructed on a far larger scale than what we happen to define for that moment as the place itself, whether that be a street, or a region or even a continent.81 According to Massey, there seems to be a desire for “fixity,” “security of identity” and a homogenous locality, which represents a retreat, a “romanticized escapism” in an age of hectic and chaotic dynamisms. This idea of locality seems to fuel the idea of drawing

81 Doreen Massey, “A Global Sense of Place,” in The Cultural Geography Reader (Hoboken: Routledge, 2008), 262.

81 boundaries.82 Yet, the idea of a locale or a place does not need to be reactionary and require boundaries.83 Massey opts for a “progressive sense of place.” She argues for a multiplicity of connections and networks within a place.84 She further stresses that the “geography of social relations is changing” and that “such relations are increasingly stretched out over space.”85 Massey states that it is not “some long internalized history” that produces the specificities of a place “but the fact that it is constructed out of a particular constellation of social relations, meeting and weaving together at a particular locus.”86 In In July, European cities are connected through their diverse and cosmopolitan atmospheres. Although many of the characteristics described further above could be seen as part of any metropolitan cityscape around the globe, these are nonetheless constructed as distinctly European through the specific combination of languages, demographics, streets, and architecture. These cities are explicitly marked as Hamburg and Budapest, as

82 This might be the initial position of Daniel, when he explains that he wants to stay in Hamburg and enjoy the summer in the northern German city. His apartment in Hamburg seems to be the retreat from his life as a schoolteacher in a chaotic teenage environment. His initiation story is soon to show him other aspects of Europe and European lifestyles.

83 Massey, “A Global Sense of Place,” 260, 261.

84 “If it is now recognized that people have multiple identities then the same point can be made in relation to places. Moreover, such multiple identities can either be a source of richness or a source of conflict, or both.” Ibid., 261.

85 Ibid., 262.

86 As a result, Massey concludes that, first, place is not static, it is constantly in motion and changes as the components of its networks are shifting and changing. Second, there are no boundaries in the sense of divisions. Third, places, as peoples’ identities, are not single and unique. There are multiple identities existing simultaneously and these change continuously. Finally, forth, the specificity of a place changes and is continuously reproduced. “It is a sense of place, an understanding of ‘its character,’ which can only be constructed by linking that place to places beyond. A progressive sense of place would recognize that, without being threatened by it. What we need …is a global sense of the local, a global sense of place.” Ibid.

82 a part of a larger European history, culture, and lifestyle, but also as places in flux with blurring boundaries, which do not exclude interactions and exchanges with places beyond a geo-political Europe. Additionally, the city in In July is constructed as a space for love and affection. Metropolitan spaces such as Paris and Berlin have prominently denoted sexuality and carnal desires in literary works for centuries.87 Now, in Akın’s European space, cities such as Hamburg, Budapest, and Istanbul are chosen to equally represent such spaces of desire.88 It is in the cities that the protagonists experience and show their love and carnal desires. In Hamburg, Juli falls in love with Daniel, and Daniel falls in love with Melek. In Budapest, Luna stimulates Daniel’s sexual desires, and, finally in Istanbul, Daniel discovers and reveals his true love for Juli. The final sequence in the film portrays daytime scenes in Istanbul that underscore the city as a space for love. Daniel arrives at a bus terminal in Istanbul.89 He walks through the crowded place, moves between the old and the young, men and women, veiled and unveiled women. He is on the Asian side of Istanbul, at the bus terminal in Harem. This is indicated through Daniel’s walk along the Bosporus. He walks by the

87 Katharina Gerstenberger, Writing the New Berlin: The German Capital in Post-Wall Literature (Rochester, NY: Camden House, 2008), 24-26.

88 Most certainly, these cities have represented sexuality also prior to Akın’s films. Hamburg as a major sailor city has long been associated with sex and transgressive sexual behavior (prostitution, homosexuality, etc.). Istanbul and other Ottoman and Arabic cities and places have represented spaces for orientalized and exoticized sexual fantasies. However, in Akın’s film(s) these spaces become venues for love and carnal desire without the clichés associated with the places.

89 Considering the histories of Istanbul, Constantinople, and Byzantium, the shifting and fuzzy edges of Europe are best alluded to with the city of Istanbul. The former city of the Greek and Roman Empire is only with the arrival of the Ottoman’s in the late 13th century a city that represents a capital of Islamic culture, and thus a shifting edge to Christian Europe. Also considering the expansion of the , which led well into today’s political Europe (Vienna), further fluxes of European borders are highlighted.

83 water, passes the kız kulesi to his left (“maiden tower” – a historic landmark in the Bosporus, which is at the shores of Üsküdar, an old historic urban district of Istanbul).90 The scene then cuts to the European side of the Bosporus. We see Daniel walking through the crowded area in the Ortaköy plaza, right at the Bosporus. Ortaköy is a historic district on the European side of Istanbul. It was a cosmopolitan area already during the Ottoman Empire having diverse religions and ethnicities living and coming together in one neighborhood. It is here that Daniel meets Juli and declares his love. Encircled by the waters of the Bosporus, the first Bosporus Bridge, the Ottoman Neo- Baroque-style Ortaköy Mosque as well as the many people standing around them at the plaza, Daniel and Juli kiss. The camera, showing close-ups of the kissing couple, grounds the circular construction of the frame by moving around Daniel and Juli. Istanbul, like Hamburg and Budapest, manifests itself as a space for love and desire. The cityscape is contoured with diverse, multiethnic, and multireligious people, historical landmarks as well as contemporary musical mixtures in the nondiegetic sound in the sequence. Through this sequence, Istanbul is shown to share a connected space with Hamburg and Budapest in the European city spaces, while maintaining its differences. Similar to Mazierska and Rascaroli, who state that they “adopt a broader concept [of Europe], according to which Moscow, Warsaw and Sarajevo are as integral to Europe as Paris and London,” I would like to highlight that Akın’s concept of Europe includes Budapest and

90 “The Maiden's Tower is a tower located on a stone pile, at an arrow shooting distance from the Asian coast, at the intersection point of Asia and Europe. It is one of the unique structures throughout the world, between two continents. This tower, which dates back to 2500 years ago, had a history identical to İstanbul's history, being an eyewitness to whatever the city has encountered. Its history started in the antiquity, and it existed throughout the Greek times to Byzantine Empire, and from Ottoman Empire until the present.” Recently, the tower has been opened to the public and has a restaurant and cafeteria. “Kızkulesi (Maiden Tower),” Istanbullife.org, accessed February 13, 2010, http://www.istanbullife.org/kizkulesi-maiden-tower.htm.

84 Istanbul, which become “integral” for his visions of Europe.91 Akın, ultimately, links what Mazierska and Rascaroli separated into different categories, “Old Europe” (Hamburg), “Postcommunist Europe” (Budapest) and adds Istanbul which is, at the most, a “key figure of difference” in most film scholarship.92 Juxtaposed to the city spaces of Europe are the rural spaces. The relevance of the countryside in In July is two-fold. As the exemplary Hungarian-Romanian border sequence discussed above illustrates, the landscape seamlessly continues between nationally divided spaces, across borders, and thus creates a unity of rural landscapes. Beyond that, however, the countryside establishes an alternate space to the city spaces of Hamburg, Budapest, and Istanbul, as special, romanticized loci. The European landscape functions as locus amoenus in various scenes in In July. In literature, a locus amoenus is understood as a place outside the city limits, beyond multitudes of people, buildings, and technology. English literature scholar Michael Squires describes the concept as follows:

Originating in antiquity and becoming a standard feature in landscape description, the locus amoenus or ‘lovely place’ quickly formed part of the landscape of both pastoral and erotic poetry; it became the pagan counterpart of the Garden of Eden. E. R. Curtius (p. 195) defines the locus amoenus as a natural site, both shaded and beautiful, whose basic ingredients are trees, a meadow, and a spring or brook.93

The locus amoenus traditionally has both sensual and moral functions. Although its sensual function has been favored in literature (by Theocritus, Vergil, Longus, and Tasso, e.g.), its moral function has found vivid expression in the Bower of Bliss and in the Garden of Eden.94

91 Mazierska and Rascaroli, From Moscow to Madrid, 6.

92 Ibid., 7ff.

93 Michael Squires, “Adam Bede and the Locus Amoenus,” Studies in English Literature, 1500-1900 13, no. 4 (Autumn 1973): 670.

94 Ibid., 671. 85 Juli and Daniel are often depicted in contemporary, European loci amoeni. The Danube River, the heath in Romania, as well as the forests in Romania function as such places. The film combines the settings of “river,” “heath,” and “forest” from these different regions, to form one large European locus amoenus, thereby turning the landscapes of Central and Eastern Europe into a locus amoenus for the protagonists. At the same time, this locus amoenus is located in Eastern Europe, close to rundown gas stops, rusty ships, or narrow, unpaved roads. By being edgier and dirtier, these settings are an ironic reversal of classic European ideas about what constitutes a locus amoenus. The Danube River, originating in the German Black Forest and passing through Central and Eastern European capitals, empties into the Black Sea and as such, connects the regions and nation-states in Central and Eastern Europe. In In July, the Danube becomes a romantic locus amoenus for Juli and Daniel. Floating on the river as stowaway on a small East European cargo ship, Juli and Daniel smoke Cannabis, sing a classic American love song (“Blue Moon Revisited (Song for Elvis)),” performed by the Cowboy Junkies), and compose the poetic love vows that Daniel is supposed to use on Melek. While the couple travels on the ship, the background depicts, first, city lights, which resemble shining stars, and later, forest silhouettes in the dark. The setting, the song, and the love vows are at the same time kitschy, romantic, and sobering. This locus amoenus does not exclude the rusty vehicle of transportation which Daniel and Juli boarded illegally, and, thereby, allows for a rougher setting than the classic locus amoenus from love poetry. A similar bonding moment between Daniel and Juli is set in the heath in Romania. Here, Juli and Daniel are contemplating how to proceed with their travel. A medium-long shot shows them sitting on long grass and picking flowers. The romantic heath continues beyond the camera frame to suggest an open and infinite landscape. A 86 counter shot, however, reveals their closeness to a rundown gas station and parking lot. Instead of resulting in a moment of disillusionment, the entire scenery is incorporated into this alternate set of a locus amoenus, which allows for these sights of decay. Here, deciding to steal a car in Bonny and Clyde fashion from an ostensibly dislikeable Romanian, Juli and Daniel become petty criminal lovers in Eastern Europe’s locus amoenus. Ultimately, the settings in In July can be identified as ironically romanticized landscapes that function as edgy, postmodern loci amoeni, which include the stereotypical harsher realities of Eastern Europe, such as rusty boats, decrepit gas stations as well as criminal activities. Europe, and Eastern Europe in particular, provides a seemingly uninterrupted locus amoenus, which underscores the developing love story of the protagonists in a connected European space.

Soundscapes: Aural Spaces in Europe

Similar to land- and cityscapes, the soundscapes in In July are instrumental for Akın’s filmic constructions of Europe, providing an aural potpourri of languages and music. Thereby, the sound in the films underscores the multiplicities, mixtures, and diversities within Europe. The different accents and dialects of the protagonists emphasize linguistic diversity. Linguistic variations become the aural norm and replace the idea that “strange” sounds and languages are limited to the alien, “other” immigrant in the Western city.95 East European languages, Turkish, German, and English as well as Turkish pop music from a tape played in Isa’s car, a multiethnic live-band from Hamburg, a pop song by a Canadian band on the Danube, and psychedelic music on a

95 Discussing the sound of cities, Fran Tonkiss addresses how immigrants have been traditionally perceived as other in the city. Fran Tonkiss, “Aural Postcards: Sound, Memory and the City,” in The Auditory Culture Reader, ed. Michael Bull and Les Back (Oxford and New York: Berg, 2003), 305.

87 Hungarian dance floor portray the aural diversity of In July and highlight a cosmopolitan European aural space. Music is an important component for Akın’s (urban) generation who grew up with music videos on MTV Europe and VIVA on TV, but who also experienced the lively music scene in Hamburg. This importance of musical influences is also reflected in Akın’s films, which provide a diversity of nondiegetic and diegetic music. As in most of Akın’s films, the music in In July is polyphonic. The opening sequence in Bulgaria, for example, ends with Daniel’s and Isa’s journey to Turkey. The music played in the car is a tape by popular Turkish musician Sezen Aksu. In this scene, the diegetic sound of Aksu is a hint at multidirectionality of migration and travel.96 Before moving southeast with Daniel and Isa, the tape of Aksu’s music had travelled from Turkey to Germany (a reference to cultural transfers between the two nations). Aksu’s song has become a part of a new European sound. In the 1970s and 80s, green grocers and other import/export stores in German (and other European) cities with immigrant communities have started to import Turkish cultural goods.97 Cultural events and concerts organized for the immigrant communities brought cultural entertainment from Turkey to Germany. Today, in the age of the Internet, satellite, cable, and digital TV, many foreign TV broadcasts are present in private and public spheres in Germany (and Europe) in homes, restaurants, and shops.

96 Discussing the characters’ travels in Head-On, Göktürk refers to multidirectionality of migration. Göktürk, “Sound Bridges: Transnational Mobility as Ironic Drama,” 155, 168.

97 These included Turkish newspapers, which started to be sold already in the 1960s. In the 1970s and 1980s music and videocassettes were increasingly popular items for the Turkish clientele. In the 1990s, Turkish media access increased with foreign satellite and cable TV stations entering the private sphere in Germany. For more details please see: Andreas Goldberg, “Medien der Migrant/Innen,” in Interkulturelle Literatur in Deutschland: Ein Handbuch, ed. Carmine Chiellino (Stuttgart and Weimar: Metzler, 2000), 419-435.

88 Many of these Turkish medial commodities in Germany are often discussed critically. As social scientist Andreas Goldberg states, Turkish music, video, or, TV broadcast have often been read as a “retreat from society”, as a self-isolation from German society.98 Calling the Turkish media rush and consumption in Germany a “medial ghettoization,” Goldberg further states that the function of the media recalled fears about immigrant integration.99 There were:

anxieties, that the strong dedication to (Turkish) mother tongue media would gradually lead to a social exclusion of the foreign population from German communication structures.100

In Akın’s film, these common fears of some social sciences scholarship and public discourse are replaced by an accepted inclusiveness of the media. In In July, the music does not feature as an exotic commodity, neither as an alien element that alludes to foreignness. Aksu’s song becomes one alternative, which exists simultaneously along other commodities. Through its genre (pop) it is in dialogue with other pop music in Germany. Aksu’s music becomes a part of Germany through the commodified use in Isa’s quotidian life. Other songs in the European sound of In July include music by the New York- based multiethnic band Brooklyn Funk Essentials. In the soundtrack to In July, Brooklyn Funk Essentials, an “acid-jazz, funk, and hip hop collective, featuring musicians and poets from different cultures,” features some songs with Turkish folk music rhythms and

98 “Rückzug aus der Gesellschaft” Ibid., 420.

99 “mediale Ghettoisierung” Ibid.

100 Da waren “Befürchtungen, dass die starke Hinwendung zum heimatsprachlichen Medienangebot zu einer allmählichen, sozialen Abschottung der ausländischen Wohnbevölkerung von deutschen Kommunikationsstrukturen führen kann.” Ibid., 434.

89 instruments, and artists such as Laço Tayfa.101 Aurally, this results in what I call a “musical heteroglossia,” a dialogic creation of music, which blends styles, traditions, and instruments. This is similar to the aforementioned band Niños con Bombas, which becomes an emblem for musical diversity. As in most of Akın’s films, the soundtrack of In July suggests relations, interrelations, and connections of people, places, and entities. Rob Burns states that “[l]ike geographical borders, linguistic and musical boundaries are constantly crossed or dissolved in Akın’s films, all of which, with the exception of Solino (2002), are polyglot.”102 In addressing the soundtrack at the end of In July, Burns stresses the fusion quality of the music, which “provides a perfect complement to the film’s broader vision: a fusion of musical styles and voices that blend together jazz, reggae and folk and sets off English lyrics against clarinet, an instrument beloved in Turkish folk music. …. [Thus, the musical score has a] rich interplay of cultural influences.”103 Ultimately, regions starting in Hamburg going through Eastern Europe and Turkey are connected through the travelers and their adventures, and also through the music that accompanies them, and creates a diverse European aural landscape. Anthropologists Aghil Gupta and James Ferguson discuss the existing assumption of many disciplines that certain cultures live in fixed geographical locations. This view is proven problematic in today’s globalized world with its multiple, migrating, moving

101 “Brooklyn Funk Essentials,” last.fm, accessed August 9, 2010, http://www.last.fm/music/Brooklyn+Funk+Essentials.

102 Burns, “Toward a Cinema of Cultural Hybridity: Turkish-German Filmmakers and the Representation of Alterity,” 13.

103 Burns, “On the Streets and on the Road: Identity in Transit in Turkish-German Travelogues on Screen,” 23.

90 cultures and peoples. The scholars criticize that “[t]he distinctiveness of societies, nations, and cultures is predicated on a seemingly unproblematic division of space, on the fact that they occupy ‘naturally’ discontinuous spaces.”104 Cultures and people “cease to be plausibly identifiable as spots on a map.” According to Gupta and Ferguson, certain fields, including national elites, still present people and places as “solid, commonsensical, and agreed on,” when they are in fact “contested, uncertain and in flux.”105 Therefore, Gupta and Jameson suggest moving “beyond naturalized conceptions of spatialized ‘cultures’ and to explore instead the production of difference within common, shared, and connected space.”106 Akın’s European sound becomes a polyphonic multitude of music, languages, lyrics, and other sounds that cannot be identified as “spots on a map,” either. This is particularly reflected in the use of languages in the soundscapes of In July. In Akın’s films, diverse characters in geographically different settings speak numerous languages, dialects, and accents. The speakers travel and move with their languages and through their voices create an aural connection between the places. To begin the film in Bulgaria with two German-speaking characters (travelers), already suggests an opening of language borders: the filmic editing disjoints language and country/place. This can be read as a denaturalization of people, culture, and place, as suggested by Gupta and Ferguson. Similar to the portrayal of two German-speaking characters in Bulgaria, the sequence in Budapest where at least two Slavic languages, as well as English and

104 For the scholars, the display of “people, tribes and cultures” on classic ethnographic maps, or, the basic world maps, which depict an “inherently fragmented space” (through colors, borders, etc.) is inadequate. Gupta and Ferguson, “Beyond ‘Culture’: Space, Identity, and the Politics of Difference,” 61.

105 Gupta and Ferguson argue that mainly national elites and states construct and maintain reified and naturalized national representations. Ibid., 64.

106 Ibid., 66. 91 German are used for the soundtrack, suggests that various languages can be encountered in different regions. Various linguistic, ethnic, and religious groups of people can simultaneously exist in different places. Moreover, Akın’s linguistic diversity in his films adds more languages to the European soundtrack, as established, for example, by ’ 1994 feature Lisbon Story. Film scholars Ewa Mazierska and Laura Rascaroli point out that Wenders excluded certain languages such as Turkish, Irish, or Serbo-Croatian from his European opening to his film Lisbon Story and solely used languages associated with the core of Europe such as German, French, Spanish, Portuguese, and English.107 Akın, naturally, so it seems, adds Turkish, Hungarian, Romanian, Serbo-Croatian, and other languages to the sounds of post-1989 European cities. This polyphonic European sound is not merely a vibrant soundtrack to In July. Rather, it adds an aural dimension to the construction of a diverse and multiethnic European space. The soundscapes are in dialogue with city and rural spaces. They reiterate, aurally, a multiethnic and polyphonic Europe.

CONCLUSION: DECENTRALIZED EUROPE?

By discussing the dynamism, sights, and sounds of Europe, chapter one aimed to give insights about Akın’s spatial constructions of Europe and the subtly implied notions of Europeanness in In July. Through In July’s depictions of people, places, and entities, Europe becomes a space, which is open from various directions to (mainly European) travelers. Europeanness becomes an attitude, a lifestyle, which implies traveling through these regions, landscapes, and cityscapes. It implies cosmopolitanism, a free-spirited,

107 Mazierska and Rascaroli, Crossing New Europe: Postmodern Travel and the European Road Movie, 204.

92 anti-essentialist way of thinking as well as navigation through and embracing of the “other” European space.108 This space includes East European countries of the post-Cold War era, but also traditionally excluded regions: in Akın’s case, this is Turkey. An example for cosmopolitanism in progress in In July is Daniel’s quest. Through his educational journey (Bildungsreise) along an unconventional route through a still largely unknown post-1989 East European territory, a seemingly bourgeois, uptight, and naive teacher turns into an open-minded European cosmopolite. By experiencing and negotiating with the people and places on his travel, Daniel gradually becomes a more balanced person, whose Bildung consists of the acquisition of a cosmopolitan identity. Cinema provides one way of imagining concepts of Europe.109 The EU has recognized and accordingly utilized cinema as a tool for projections of European values and lifestyles. Katrin Sieg argues that “[t]hrough substantial cultural funding programs it [the EU] has sought to foster positive popular identification with European identity and values. The EU’s cultural policy has stimulated the visual, narrative and theatrical imagining of European community as cosmopolitan, tolerant, and diverse.”110 She argues that “Cinema contributes to the popular, ideological project of imagining Europe by asking what kind of transnational community is desirable and possible.”111

108 Free-spirited cosmopolitanism is certainly best symbolized through the character of Luna. She is not identifiable as belonging to a particular nation-state. Her secretiveness about the languages she speaks and understands further underscores her character’s ambiguity. Luna represents an eroticized and exoticized face to a cosmopolitan Europeanness.

109 Discussing the funding and production details, film scholars Katrin Sieg and Mary P. Wood see the new European cinema as a global entity. Sieg further stresses the importance that cinema provides for imaginations of Europe. Wood, Contemporary European Cinema, 11; Sieg, Choreographing the Global in European Cinema and Theater, 2, 31.

110 Sieg, Choreographing the Global in European Cinema and Theater, 2.

111 Ibid., 62. 93 In July creates a productive tension with these EU goals. On the one hand, Daniel’s metamorphosis turns him into a – to use Sieg’s words - “cosmopolitan, tolerant, and diverse” European subject traversing Eastern Europe, and the other characters in the film also seem to fit a desired cosmopolitan community. The four principal characters in In July are cast as the new, young faces of Europe, who represent Europeanness as diverse, tolerant, and open-minded with a desire for freedom of movement. The film appeals to a wider European audience who envisions a cosmopolitan, traversable Europe. Generally speaking, this could be a vision of Europe, which might be compatible with the cultural agenda of the EU. However, on the other hand, Akın’s Europe includes spaces outside the geo-political borders of the European Union, in particular Turkey. This is emphasized visually through Turkish-German characters who also come to represent faces of Europe, and through mise-en-scène (areal view of the Bosporus, local places in Istanbul, etc.) as well as aurally through the soundtrack of the film. At the same time, In July also subtly criticizes governmental policies, which regulate the freedom of movement to/within Europe. Turkish travelers such as Isa’s uncle are not allowed to move freely as they please; they are dependent on restricted travel and visit permits and visas. It seems that Akın’s cinematic Europe is embedded in a vision of an extended diversified Europe, a European space, which is decentralized and brought into existence through people from various ethnic, linguistic, and cultural backgrounds, who interact, traverse, commute, or travel together. Multiple affiliations become the norm in Akın’s cinematic Europe. Through Hamburg with its multiethnic and multilingual musical events, restaurants, and characters, or through Budapest with its vibrant and diverse people and cityscape that are linked through the narrative, mise-en-scène, and soundtrack

94 of the film, Akın’s depictions of Europe become a spatial embrace of diversity.112 This embrace is opposed to xenophobic fantasies of homogenous, national, monolingual whiteness as expressed in conservative discourses on Europe.113 Although the comedic road movie In July is one of Akın’s early works and probably the most commercial film in his career so far, it already bears many of Akın’s visions of Europe and Europeanness, which are based on a “mobile sense of place” that is primarily marked by multilocal affiliations of the multiethnic and polyphonic characters. These features about Europe and Europenness are revisited in many of his later films in a different format. Akın’s films generally include themes such as borders, legal and illegal border crossings, and deportation, which are questions of today’s European realities. Against the backdrop of these “realities,” Akın narrates his interpersonal relationship stories of anger, mourning, love, and reconciliation.

112 “Fatih Akin: ‘Me estaba oscureciendo a mí mismo con tanta tragedia’,” latercera.com, March 29, 2010, accessed August 10, 2010, http://latercera.com/contenido/1453_237639_9.shtml.

113 For an analysis of discourses on conservative Europe and Europeanness please see El-Tayeb, “‘The Birth of a European Public’: Migration, Postnationality, and Race in the Uniting of Europe.” 95 Chapter Two: Language Use and Dialogue: Multilingualism in Akın’s Head-On

INTRODUCTION

“Sağol, Uğur abi. Çok teşettkür edmek istiyorum jüriye, arkadaşlar. Bana laik gördüğünüz icin, sağolun, arkadaşlar.”1 “Danke schön. Das ist ja sehr nett. Is’ ja sehr nett hier in Berlin.”2 “I needed to laugh. It’s what Charlie Chaplin says, smile. […] I became the slave of success, and the slave of seriosity [sic!]… I didn’t want that … life is more than that.”3 In international film circuits and festivals, be it in Sarajevo, , Berlin, Antalya, or San Sebastián, Akın responds to questions about his films and awards in one of his three languages of communication: Turkish, German, or English. As a trilingual producer, director, writer, and actor, Akın emphasizes multilingualism in his work. Considering the EU’s goal of trilinguality among its citizenry,4 Akın and his films might become important in terms of promoting multilingualism within and beyond the

1 “Thank you, brother Uğur. I would like to thank the jury, dear friends. Thank you for considering me for this award, dear friends.” This is the thank you note of Akın accepting the 2004 best director award at the Turkish Film Award Artın Portakal (Golden Orange) in Turkey. Fatih Akın best director at Altın Portakal Film Festival, 2007, accessed April 1, 2010, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fOeTz4gdjD4&feature=youtube_gdata.

2 “Thank you very much. That is really nice. It is nice here in Berlin.” This is a talk by Akın after the film screening of Gegen die Wand at the 2004 Berlinale Film Festival. Berlinale 2004: “Gegen die Wand” (“Head on”), by Fatih Akin, 2007, accessed April 1, 2010, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=035FuRpfmbA&feature=youtube_gdata. 02:12.

3 Akın gives an interview in English at the 2009 talking about his 2009 film Soul Kitchen. 66th Venice Film Festival - Fatih Akin - Moritz Bleibtreu, 2009, accessed April 1, 2010, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qtv5BcDn-AA&feature=youtube_gdata.

4 The EU’s website states that the “EU’s guiding principle is that every person should be able to speak two foreign languages in addition to their mother tongue.” Linguistic Professor emeritus Henning Wode and his colleagues and students at the University of Kiel have started the Kiel project, which has advocated and researched for decades the early immersion of school children in order to become trilingual. For more details on the EU’s policy on trilingualism, please see: “EU Languages and Language Policy,” : Multilingualism, last updated November 24, 2010, last accessed February 9, 2011, http://ec.europa.eu/education/languages/languages-of-europe/index_en.htm. 96 boundaries of the European Union.5 In his films, Akın naturalizes trilinguality, which becomes a part of quotidian experiences of (urban) Europe. This chapter concentrates on language use as an exemplary formal element in Gegen die Wand (Head-On, 2004). Through this formal element, Akın conveys a sense of multiplicities, movements, and fluxes in his visions of a multilingual Europe. I am particularly interested in analyzing the portrayal of migration, immigration and “Turkish- Germanness” in Head-On through Akın’s use of language for the film.6 Immigration plays a major role in most European countries and continues to impact and change their cityscapes. Recent scholarship on Akın and other directors and writers of Turkish heritage explored the themes of hybridity, diversity, and “Turkish-Germanness” in Germany.7 However, this scholarship has not included an extended critical reading of Akın’s use of second-generation Turkish-German figures and their languages as examples of a newly developed diverse “demography” in European film.8 I will compare

5 On their official web site the EU encourages its citizenry to study and learn other European languages to promote mobility and flexibility within Europe. The site further highlights the current multilingualism in many EU member-states due to migration and immigration. It has become ever more important to be multilingual, according to the EU officials. “EUROPA-Languages-Language Learning”, February 4, 2008, accessed April 1, 2010, http://europa.eu/languages/en/chapter/14.

6 With language use I am referring to all types of language used in the film, this includes dialogues, monologues, soliloquies as well as song lyrics.

7 The following are a few examples of scholarship dedicated to Turkish-German identity politics in various fields: Chiellino, Interkulturelle Literatur in Deutschland: Ein Handbuch; Azade Seyhan, “Lost in Translation: Re-Membering the Mother Tongue in Emine Sevgi Özdamar’s das Leben ist eine Karawanserei,” The German Quarterly 69, no. 4 (1996): 414-426; Esen, “Beyond ‘In-Between,’ Travels and Transformations in Contemporary Turkish-German Literature and Film.”; Sabine Fischer and Moray McGowan, “From Pappkoffer to Pluralism,” in Turkish Culture in German Society Today, ed. David Horrocks and Eva Kolinsky (Providence and London: Berghahn Books, 1996), 1-22; Ezli, “Von der Identität zur Individuation: Gegen die Wand - eine Problematisierung kultureller Identitätszuschreibungen.”; Adelson, The Turkish Turn in Contemporary German Literature: Toward a New Critical Grammar of Migration.

8 In their recent work Göktürk and Mennel have addressed languages in The Edge of Heaven and David Garmling has published an article giving a brief overview of the languages in Akın’s oeuvre. However, 97 the representation of Turkish-Germans in Head-On to earlier depictions in Turkish- German films. How much does Akın use, play on, or reject images that are based on stereotypes of Turkish-Germans? And what does “Turkishness,” “Germanness,” and “Europeanness” mean in Head-On? The close readings of selected scenes in the film will give insight into a diversified Europeanness, it will complicate national and ethnic categories, and, ultimately, also open the European space to Turkey. Head-On is a love story between two second-generation Turkish-Germans who live in Hamburg.9 After a suicide attempt, Sibel () asks Cahit (Birol Üner) to marry her in order to escape her conservative father Yunus Güner (Demir Gökgöl) and brother Yılmaz (Cem Akın). Once away from the paternal household, Sibel tries to live out her repressed desires. Although this was initially a marriage of convenience, Cahit eventually falls in love with her. When Sibel also becomes aware of her own growing affections for him, the situation escalates: Cahit accidentally kills an ex-lover of hers and is imprisoned. Abandoned by her father and brother because of adultery and scandal, Sibel moves to Turkey. She plans to stay with her welcoming cousin Selma (Meltem Cumbul) in Istanbul while waiting for Cahit. After his release from prison, however, Cahit finds Sibel settled down with a new boyfriend and daughter in Istanbul. The film ends with Sibel deciding to stay with her new family, and Cahit taking a bus to Mersin, his birthplace in southern Turkey.

none of these articles focus on an in-depth study of the language use in the films and its implications for a new demography in Europe. Göktürk, “Mobilität und Stillstand im Weltkino digital.”; Gramling, “On the Other Side of Monolingualism: Fatih Akın’s Linguistic Turn.”; Mennel, “Überkreuzungen in globaler Zeit und globalem Raum in Fatih Akıns “Auf der anderen Seite.”

9 As Mahmut Mutman states, the film is a love story, a theme familiar with European audiences, and does not require a “culture-specific” reading. Mahmut Mutman, “Up Against the Wall of the Signifier: Gegen die Wand,” in Shifting Landscapes: Film and Media in European Context (Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2008), 318, 319. 98 Although this film could be approached from a variety of directions, I look at it through the lens of language use, which plays a key component in Head-On. I am especially interested to see which languages the characters speak in various contexts. Which registers do they use in which languages? How does the style and tone vary among the speakers? Ultimately, I assert that Akın’s film undercuts stereotypical assumptions regarding belonging, ethnicity, “Germanness” and “Europeanness” through the language use of the characters. I argue that polyphonic language in Head-On grounds three major issues. First, the language use in the film opens notions of belonging. Belonging becomes more flexible and allows multilocal affiliations. At the same time, categories such as “German” and “European” become diversified. I look at language use as a complicated marker of belonging. The language use of several second-generation Turkish-Germans in the film shows how Turkish-Germans are an integral part of a diverse Germany/Europe. Second, polyglot characters in the film continuously complicate national and ethnic categorizations. Their languages manifest complex identities and move beyond generalized and clichéd assumptions about “Turks” or “Turkish-Germans,” thereby erasing essentialist presumptions. By giving a close reading of Sibel’s varied language use throughout the film, I look at language use as a marker of identification. This segment gives insights into the complexities of multiethnic, Turkish-German identities in Head-On. Third, I show how an interconnection and extension of European spaces and places is created through language use. The film portrays Turkey as linked to Germany and as a part of Europe. Here, I discuss language use as a marker of cosmopolitanism. I analyze one dialogue between Cahit and Selma in Istanbul, paying particularly close attention to Selma, a businesswoman from Istanbul. I argue that through the depiction of 99 Selma, and through her language use in particular, Selma comes to personify urban professionalism, and thereby links Istanbul to Europe and, in fact, becomes intrinsically associated with it.

LANGUAGE USE IN HEAD-ON

Language and Belonging: Switching Codes – Switching Places

In Head-On, Akın establishes a complicated relationship between language and belonging. Not only does Akın portray a normalization of ethnicities in Germany and Europe, he also portrays an opening of the concept of belonging toward multiple regions. Akın’s use of code switching episodes, for example, helps to subversively make statements about belonging. Two representative scenes from Head-On will help to exemplify this.10 In the first scene to be discussed, Cahit, the protagonist from Hamburg, has just arrived in Istanbul and Necat, the taxi driver, drives him from the airport to a hotel. The scene begins with a long shot depicting wide and open sights of Istanbul framed by the taxi windows. The outside view of Istanbul is sunlit and warm. The sights are accompanied with the diegetic sound of Turkish folk music that the car radio provides; this type of music is often associated with Anatolia11 as well as with emotional experiences of gurbet (roughly: being abroad, in exile).12 The taxi scene then shows the

10 The first scene shows a taxi ride of Cahit in Istanbul and the second scene shows a conversation between Cahit and his brother in law, Yılmaz.

11 generally refers to the Asian and Eastern parts of Turkey.

12 I translate gurbet into German as: “die Ferne, die Heimweh/Nostalgie erzeugt.” Gurbet means an exile or foreign place; either as experienced through migration from southeastern, rural Anatolia to the western cities of Turkey, or as experienced through work migration to foreign destinations. An example for such migrations is the guest worker program. Guest workers went to European countries such as Germany, France, or . This migration often resulted in nostalgia for the familiar, rural homelands, including family and friends or lovers, but also, more generally, a longing for places, music, and customs left behind. 100 dialogue between Cahit and Necat with classic shot/reverse shot granting both characters equal importance in the narrative. Throughout the conversation, the slightly disoriented Cahit curiously looks through the rear window at the sights of Istanbul (which include the historic Galata Kulesi (Galata Tower) on the north shore of the Golden Horn and the Galata Köprüsü (Galata Bridge)).13

NECAT: … Yolculuk nereden? (Turkish: Where are you coming from?) CAHIT: Hamburg. NECAT Hamburg? Du bist aus Hamburg, oder was? (Hamburg? You are from Hamburg, or what?) CAHIT: Jo. (Yeah.) NECAT: Ey alter, ich bin aus München, Mann. (Dude, I am from Munich, man.) CAHIT: O’Gott, bist’n Bayer, oder was? (Jee, are you a Barvarian, or what?) NECAT: Ja, in meinem letzten Leben war ich ein Bayer. Aber jetzt bin ich halt hier. Die ham’ mich abgeschoben …. die Schweine … rausgeschmissen …. was … (Yes, in my last life I was a Bavarian. But now I am just here. They’ve deported me… the pigs…. thrown me out, what …)

In the scene, the taxi driver initially speaks in Turkish to his customer and Cahit’s replies are rudimentary, as expected due to his limited knowledge of Turkish. However, when the taxi driver discovers Cahit’s origin, he immediately switches to German. The

Many migrants who travelled from the eastern parts of Turkey to Istanbul have brought along this kind of Arabesque music. The same is true for many migrants, who went to Germany or other European countries. In the beginning of the Turkish-Arabesque movement, it was not a very popular musical form in Turkey. Arabesque was generally associated with workers and uneducated peasants of Anatolia. Through the exponentially growing number of listeners, which was the result of cassette exports to Germany, musicians travelling to Germany for concerts, and also through new radio stations dedicated to these kinds of music, it has become a popular form of music in Turkey as well as among several groups of Turkish-Germans in Germany and elsewhere in Europe. Many times the themes of Arabesque are about unfulfilled love. The concept and theme of kara sevda – which translates into “dark love,” which equals a “painful, unfulfilled love” – is very popularly used in these songs. Following Martin Stokes, Daniela Berghahn further explains that Turkish “arabesque music was originally the music of labor migrants who moved from the southeast of Turkey to the big cities, it soon developed into a more encompassing social and cultural phenomenon and manifested itself in other forms of cultural production, notably cinema.” Berghahn, “No Place like Home? Or Impossible Homecomings in the Films of Fatih Akin,” 154.

13 The following dialog is a transcription from Head-On’s cab driver scene in Istanbul. Cahit has just arrived in Turkey, and is crossing a bridge on the European side of Istanbul, while having the following conversation with Necat, the cab driver. Gegen die Wand, chapter 16, 01:33:45 – 01:34:03. 101 taxi driver, born and raised in Germany, was deported to Turkey for drug trafficking (as we find out later in the dialogue). He speaks with a Bavarian accent, foregrounding his origins from Munich. Briefly interrupting his touristic gaze at Istanbul, Cahit looks at the taxi driver with surprise: “Gott, bist’ ‘n Bayer oder was?” (Gee’ Are you a Bavarian, or what?).14 Cahit identifies the taxi driver as Bavarian, not as a “Turk,” “German,” or “Turkish-German,” and, thereby, ironically alludes to stereotypical, regional north/south animosities between Hamburg and Munich.15 The local identity and affiliation of the two interlocutors is highlighted and established through dialect. At the same time, as soon as the mutual “German” background is established, the two speak German with each other without hesitation. Such language use, including the amalgamation of both languages, is linguistically known as code switching and appears among most bilingual speakers. This prominent episode of code switching in Istanbul between a Turkish-German visiting Turkey (Cahit) and another Turkish-German deported to Turkey (Necat) shows that these second-generation Turkish-Germans tend to use German as their main communication tool in any geographical space. The scene further offers political criticism. The use of a German dialect (Bavarian) by a deported Turkish-German who has been denied German citizenship and homeland legally and geographically, strongly suggests that on a local and private level Turkish-German identities position themselves beyond the legal and governmental choices or decisions. Necat’s language is marked by a Bavarian accent, but at the same time he speaks fluent Turkish, listens to Turkish-Arabesque music, and is able to navigate through Istanbul. This is symbolized through his work as a taxi driver. Akın’s humoristic

14 Gegen die Wand, chapter 16, 01:33:54.

15 The playful north/south animosity is also directly depicted in Akın’s In July. There, Bavaria is depicted as unfamiliar and strange to the northern German travelers. 102 depiction of two Turkish-German men speaking to each other in German - in their regional dialects - in Turkey invites the reading of these characters as Bavarian and northern German as well as Turkish and not as people in-between, homeless, or placeless. They speak one part of their local identity. Their language use is an intuitive verbalization of aspects of their belonging. Thereby, Necat’s and Cahit’s characters challenge traditional notions of Germanness, and, by extension, of Europeanness. They can be Germans as well as Turks; their belonging is ambiguous. At the same time, the scene clearly suggests that multiple affiliations are possible, and maybe even “normal” in today’s globalized world, in which people might affiliate with as well as travel, migrate, study and work in multiple places. As this example shows, language plays a pivotal role in Akın’s Head-On. In fact, I believe, it is the core of all of his films’ depictions of Turkish-German identity/ies. Through their intuitive language use the protagonists mark their belonging to specific regions; in fact, they might have multiple affiliations. Linguist Emile Benveniste argues that language is an important component not only in shaping a person’s identity but also mirroring it to the outside world. He writes in “Subjectivity in Language”16 how subjectivity - thus identity - is constituted through language:

It is in and through language that man constitutes himself as a subject, because language alone establishes the concept of ‘ego’ in reality, in its reality which is that of the being. […] Ego is he who says ‘ego’ […].17

Similar to , Benveniste argues that language is the primary source for identity construction.

16 Emile Benveniste, “Subjectivity in Language,” in Identity: a Reader, ed. Paul de Guy, Jessica Evans, and Peter Redman (London et al.: Sage, 2000), 39-43.

17 Ibid., 40, 43.

103 This theory about the intertwined relations between language and identities is similarly portrayed in Head-On. I also read the languages in the film to gain insight into various possible identifications. The film depicts a new diverse society within the Turkish-German community that cannot be easily categorized as “foreign,” “Turkish,” or as identities in-between.18 At the recent turn of the century, this new generation is increasingly and visibly productive and active in Germany. Their visibility challenges traditional notions of Germanness, which is often linked to German soil and bloodline.19 This visibility and audibility of various ethnicities in media, the work force as well as in other domains of public and intellectual life have impacted notions of culture and cultural production. Akın’s films contribute to the discourse on diversity within German and European society, and call for an understanding of the multiple layers of identification within Germany and Europe. Representation plays a major role in the process of identity formation. According to sociologist Stuart Hall, identities are always in flux and change over time, they are

18 With “diverse society,” I do not refer to a mixing of two or more distinct cultures, for I see any culture as a product of mixtures. There is no singular, homogenous culture. All cultures have been the result of mixing and intermingling of various traditions, customs, languages, rites, etc. Hybridity and diversity have always-already been. Culture is an ever-changing entity in flux.

19 For a long time German citizenship was based on bloodline alone, ius sanguine (instead of ius solis). Until 2000, in order to be German by birth, a child born in Germany had to have at least one German parent. Also after the renewal of citizenship and immigration laws (in 2000 and 2005), in order for a Turkish citizen to become German, the applicant has to fulfill certain prerequisites including the disposal of the Turkish citizenship/nationality. Only for children born in Germany after 2000 the conditions have slightly changed with the new citizenship laws. Now a child born to foreign (Turkish) parents in Germany, can be filed to be German, if the parents had been in Germany for eight years or more in good standing (that is, were employed, and with no criminal record). There are exceptions to these laws, especially if the applicants are from other EU countries. For more details see the web page of the Auswärtiges Amt in Germany: “Law on Nationality,” Auswärtiges Amt, September 16, 2005, accessed January 8, 2010, http://www.auswaertiges- amt.de/diplo/en/WillkommeninD/EinreiseUndAufenthalt/Staatsangehoerigkeitsrecht.html.

104 alterable. This goes against essentialist notions of fixed, eternal identities as portrayed in early media and governmental discourse on guest workers, for example.20

... not ‘who we are’ or ‘where we come from’, so much as what we might become, how we have been represented and how that bears on how we might represent ourselves [is relevant]. Identities are therefore constituted from within, not outside representation. […] (Gilroy 1994) (quoted in Hall)21

As this quote states, there is a link between the representation of Turkish-German ethnicities and identification processes. Akın’s filmic characters are themselves a potpourri of various former representations of guest workers and of contemporary stereotypes that are disseminated through film and other media, such as the “criminal,” “ghettoized” Turkish-German youth, or the “Islamic fundamentalist” Turkish-German male aggressor. In the next scene to be discussed, belonging is even further complicated through the use of dialect. Two Turkish-Germans with divergent ideological backgrounds are conversing in a northern German dialect (a variety of Hamburgisch) in Hamburg. They thereby demonstrate aurally their belonging to the port city of Hamburg via language use. Their narratives are part of Germany, and, by extension, of Europe, as paradox and complicated as they might be. The final dialogue between Yılmaz (Sibel’s brother) and Cahit in Hamburg shall be used as an example.

After his release from prison, Cahit visits Yılmaz in his auto repair shop to inquire about Sibel’s address in Turkey. The scene begins with a long shot of Cahit, who is framed by the shop’s door. The direct sound is of mechanical repairs in a body shop, creating a metallic, harsh sonic environment. Cahit’s background is sunlit, while the

20 For extended examples on early representations and early discourse on guest workers please consult the 2007 source book Germany in Transit: Göktürk, Gramling, and Kaes, Germany in Transit.

21 Stuart Hall, “Introduction: Who Needs Identity?,” in Questions of Cultural Identity, ed. Stuart Hall and Paul du Guy (London: Sage, 1996), 4. 105 foreground is indoors and therefore darker. The reverse shot is a long shot of Yılmaz indoors in his work environment. Yılmaz is surprised to see Cahit. A jump cut leads to their conversation, which takes place in the shop’s office. A medium shot/reverse shot depicts Cahit, sitting in front of a sunlit window, and Yılmaz, sitting in front of a world map, which hangs on his office wall. Both men are drinking Turkish tea. Here, Cahit begins his inquiry about Sibel.22

YıLMAZ: Enişte? (Brother in law? Form of address in Turkish) … CAHIT: Wo ist deine Schwester? (Where is your sister?) YıLMAZ: Ich habe keine Schwester mehr. (I don’t have a sister anymore.) CAHIT: Ihr habt doch die gleiche Mutter. (But, you have the same mother.) …. Wie geht es denn deiner Mutter? (So, how is your mother doing?) YıLMAZ: Wir mussten unsere Ehre retten. Verstehst du das? (We had to save our honor. Do you undestand that?) CAHIT: Und? Habt ihr sie gerettet, eure Ehre? (So? Did you save your honor?) YıLMAZ: … (silence). In this scene, the content of the conversation and the language choice initially play against each other to make statements about belonging. After his initial Turkish form of address: “Enişte,” Yılmaz switches to German. Yılmaz’s language is authoritarian and formulaic. A medium close-up reveals his stern and serious facial expression when he uses clichéd phrases about honor in German to answer Cahit’s questions about Sibel: “Ich habe keine Schwester mehr” (I don’t have a sister anymore.), and “Wir mussten unsere Ehre retten” (We had to save our Honor.). These utterances remain particularly curious considering the world map behind Yılmaz, which suggests openness to the world, and, by extension, open-mindedness. Even though the content of his language is highly conservative and seemingly focused on stereotypical, patriarchal Turkish-Islamic values, his language of choice remains regional German, which, again, suggests a regional

22 The following transcription of Cahit and Yılmaz’s dialogue is from chapter 16 in the auto repair workshop of Yılmaz. Gegen die Wand, chapter 16, 01:32:20-01:33:03. 106 impact on his character and links him to Hamburg. Initially, the content of his language seems to go against the dialect he uses to disseminate his thoughts. However, by expressing clichéd assumptions about Islamic fundamentalism through a regional German dialect, the expressions seem to become a part of Hamburg. The content and dialect of his language creates a productive tension. The “otherness” of the content of his speech, becomes familiar through the dialect, which calls for associations with the Hamburg harbor and, in an extended sense, also of sexuality.23 This dialogue has two functions within the narrative of the film. First, Yılmaz’s clichéd answers are revealed as stereotypical and empty. This is best shown when he is depicted speechless toward Cahit’s final, ironic remark: “Und? Habt ihr sie gerettet, eure Ehre?” (So? Did you save your honor?). The scene ends with a medium-shot of a defeated Yılamz, who is looking down, not able to answer Cahit’s last question. Second, Cahit as well as Yılmaz are portrayed as parts of Germany and thus of Europe. Their diverse belief systems and lifestyles are both part of a regional German setting: Hamburg-Altona. Their language marks them aurally as northern Germans. Although, the content of their dialogue alludes to discourses of honor killings in Muslim families living in Europe (as overgeneralized in German media depictions in recent years),24 and thus

23 In popular discourse Hamburg as a harbor city is associated with the Reeperbahn, which is an amusement and entertainment district, which includes a red light district. Hamburg and its harbor have long been associated with sexuality and transgressiveness. (At the same time, Hamburg also stands for the Hanse City and the northern German bourgeoisie.)

24 For examples of honor killing coverage in German media see: “Gülsüm wurde nach Abtreibung erschlagen,” welt.de, April 2, 2009, accessed December 14, 2009, http://www.welt.de/vermischtes/article3491080/Guelsuem-wurde-nach-Abtreibung-erschlagen.html; Yassin Musharbash, “Man lebte in Kreuzberg, aber wohl nicht in Deutschland,” Spiegel Online, April 13, 2009, accessed December 14, 2009, http://www.spiegel.de/panorama/justiz/0,1518,411283,00.html; Sebastian Fischer, “Ich bin sehr froh, dass ich die Tat begangen habe,” Spiegel Online, October 10, 2007, accessed December 14, 2009, http://www.spiegel.de/panorama/justiz/0,1518,510671,00.html; Constanze von Bullion, “In den Fängen einer türkischen Familie,” sueddeutsche.de, February 25, 2005, accessed December 14, 2009, http://www.sueddeutsche.de/politik/118/358943/text/; Ferda Ataman, “Studie zu Ehrenmorden: Was den Mord zum Ehrenmord macht | Gesellschaft | ZEIT ONLINE,” Zeit Online, 107 seems to mark, at least initially, Yılmaz as an “other.” This scene, ultimately, depicts two Turkish-Germans who are part of Europe; whether Yılmaz’s opinions change at a later point is not relevant. Two different personalities, two different stances on “honor,” or reactions toward adultery, are expressed through Yılmaz and Cahit, yet both exist simultaneously in the new Europe and are a part of its complicated diversity. Hamburg’s diversity becomes a pars pro toto, an emblem for a diverse, urban Europe. This is grounded in particular through the depiction of diverse characters such as Cahit and Yılmaz, but also through the musical soundtrack throughout the film. The use of various languages in music and speech seems to suggest a decentralized experience of belonging. It is possible, the film continues to suggest, to have multiple affiliations. One place, such as Hamburg, for example, might invite extensions to other places, such as Istanbul. In Hamburg, characters like Sibel and Cahit, and their friends and acquaintances Maren, Niko, and others, frequent events that are multiethnic and diverse. Some of these lead to violent encounters (e.g. Cahit’s fights in a Turkish disco in HH). Others simply stay venues of entertainment and pleasure (e.g. Sibel flirting and dancing). These Hamburg venues and events include Turkish discos (such as the music venue Taxim - which is also the name of a vibrant entertainment and commercial district in Istanbul), techno discos with global and commercial electronic music, or cultural centers such as Die Fabrik (The Factory) that feature international bands. Hamburg thus offers a diverse and complex soundscape. There is a tendency in the film to embrace various musical forms as well as various linguistic and ethnic differences. All of these have become a part of Hamburg, a part of Germany, and, thus, of Europe. The multiplicity and diversity of

December 7, 2009, accessed December 14, 2009, http://www.zeit.de/gesellschaft/generationen/2009- 12/ehrenmord-studie. 108 people, places, and entities has become a trademark of Hamburg and,25 in an extended fashion, of European cities, which have experienced influxes of large numbers of post- war exiles, economic and political immigration, as well as work and study related migration.26

Language and Complications of National and Ethnic Categories

Language in Head-On complicates national and ethnic categories. Akın’s use of polyglot characters in his films undercuts simplified and essentialized classifications of multiethnic identities. In general, second-generation Turkish-Germans in Head-On all use German as their first language. They speak a variety of the Hamburg and Bavarian dialect. However, they also use Turkish or English to varying degrees, which creates links to other places. In this section, I will focus mainly on the protagonist Sibel and analyze her language use. Sibel is a second-generation Turkish-German woman, born to Turkish parents in Hamburg. She is a complicated character, who cannot be categorized as “Turk” or

25 In her published Magister thesis on Akın’s films, Margaret Mackuth talks about the demography of Hamburg and of Hamburg-Altona in particular. Hamburg itself has a “foreigner” component of 14.9%, the district of Hamburg-Altona has a slightly higher immigration population with 15.7%, and, finally, the Ottensen district within HH-Altona, has even a 16.8% of immigrant population. That is, we can assume that this neighborhood in Hamburg-Altona is grown to become a center for multiethnic and multiligual diversity. Akın, who himself grew up in these districts, carefully chooses his neighborhood to be mediated for most of his feature films as a new diverse demography in German film. For the numeric details about Hamburg’s populations please see: Mackuth, Es geht um Freiheit. Interkulturelle Motive in den Spielfilmen Fatih Akins, 22.

26 Certainly, there are various different historic and economic reasons for immigration and migration to and in Europe. I am mainly interested in post-war migration, which includes post-colonial migration to countries such as the Netherlands, France, and Great Britain, and work migration like the guest worker program in Germany and in other European countries, which shaped specifically the urban spaces in Europe. Furthermore, there is migration related to political exiles, inner European migration due to the fall of the Berlin wall and the end of the Cold War, but also a more flexible migration among citizens of the European Union due to a new freedom of movement (for EU citizens). All of these movements provide for a new wave of diversity in the Europe of the 21st century.

109 “German” in the classic essentialist fashion.27 This is conveyed, among other things, through her language use. Sibel speaks German and Turkish fluently and in various registers. She speaks an accent-free idiolect of German.28 Her register and tone change according to addressees and situations. In contact with unknown Germans (flirting with men, working in the hair salon) Sibel uses a fairly polite and standardized German, whereas in situations where she is not comfortable, she switches to an aggressive tone and language in a low register. Sibel’s language use varies most noticeably in conversations with Cahit. Depending on the context, her language and tone sound persuasive, aggressive, or sensual. She employs both vulgar and standard German, high and low registers. Sibel’s low register language use seems to be an expression of her sexual repression. Sexual references, for example, are almost exclusively vulgar: “Titten” (tits),29 “Ficken” (to fuck).30 At the beginning of the film’s narrative, Sibel is ready to make use of her sexuality, but is forced to control it by her father and brother. Consequently, it can be argued that her repressed sexuality surfaces in her vulgar language. Not being able to perform her sexuality freely until she marries Cahit, she talks about it aggressively. Ultimately, Sibel has a broad German lexicon and register that shows her flexibility within the language.

27 I am referring to stereotypical classifications that are made about “Turks” and “Germans,” assuming that Germans as well as Turks are a homogenous group of people, rejecting diversity and mixtures, changes, and varying processes in identity formation and identification.

28 With “accent free,” I am referring to Sibel’s German language, which does not reflect a foreign accent or an ungrammatical use of German, which would mark her aurally as a “foreigner.”

29 Gegen die Wand, chapter 3, 00:13:30.

30 Gegen die Wand, chapter 3, 00:13:34.

110 Generally, the language of the second-generation in the film changes to Turkish and is automatically characterized by a higher register when in interactions with the first- generation Turkish-Germans. The first-generation in the film, represented by Sibel’s parents (Yunus and Birsen Güner), exclusively uses Turkish as their language of communication. Both Mr. and Mrs. Güner speak standard Turkish. Yet, Mr. Güner’s language is sometimes marked by colloquialisms with a low register: “Bu herifi taniyormusun?” (Do you know this dude?),31 or “Nezaman gelecek bu namussuzlar?” (When will these honorless people come?).32 While talking to her father, Sibel adopts a humble, shy, and silent language laden with shame. She reduces her language to a minimum of words: “Evet, baba” (Yes, father).33 While speaking she looks at the ground and has her head bowed. Toward her mother she shows more confidence and speaks more freely. Nevertheless, the communication with her mother also stays at a minimum. The negligible use of Turkish toward her parents as well as her humble posture when in their presence (especially her father’s) grounds her role as an obedient and passive daughter. Sibel performs verbally and physically the silent and repressed parts of her identity in the presence of her father. Her brief and shy Turkish utterances are visually framed by the petty-bourgeois Turkish household that foregrounds her role as silent daughter. Sibel is depicted with medium- long shots in the confining sphere of the patriarchal household serving tea, answering her parents’ questions, and washing dishes in the kitchen, framed (and imprisoned) by the kitchen door.

31 Gegen die Wand, chapter 4, 00:19:16.

32 Gegen die Wand, chapter 4, 00:19:38.

33 Gegen die Wand, chapter 4, 00:24:52.

111 However, there are other instances in the film that suggest an emotional and affectional context for the use of Turkish. When communicating with Cahit, already early in the film, Sibel uses certain Turkish phrases and colloquial expressions to address him even though Cahit’s Turkish is extremely rudimentary. Cutting Cahit’s hair in their newly decorated living room, for example, she tells him: “Çükünü keserim!” (I’m gonna cut your penis off).34 Traditionally, this popular expression is used in a low register threatening misbehaving children. Sibel uses it humorously in a familiar setting with Cahit. The diegetic sound of a Turkish rap song accompanies their conversation in German. Sibel’s Turkish expression, however, is followed by Cahit’s first sensual encounter with Sibel, in which the camera angle shows a close-up of Cahit’s face leaning on the breast of Sibel while he is having his hair cut. Highly emotional situations, such as the prison scene between Cahit and Sibel, are also accompanied by Turkish language. Here, the only other sound is Sibel’s sobbing. A shot/reverse close shows close-ups of Sibel’s and Cahit’s faces, when Sibel utters the only phrase in the scene to him: “Bekleğeceğim seni!” (I will wait for you).35 In a letter she writes to Cahit from Istanbul, Sibel closes the German text with a Turkish formula. A voice over narration of Sibel’s letter to Cahit is heard with scenes depicting Sibel in Istanbul: a medium-long shot in front of the employee entry of the Marmara hotel, a coffee shop where she drinks Efes Pilsen beer and writes a letter, and a high-angle long shot showing Sibel walking through vibrant Istanbul streets. Sibel closes the melancholic voice over narration in Turkish with “Hadi öptüm, Sibel” (Kisses, Sibel),36 once she

34 Gegen die Wand, chapter 7, 00:36:13.

35 Gegen die Wand, chapter 13, 01:14:23.

36 Gegen die Wand, chapter 23, 01:22:06.

112 enters a dark underground bar, which has esoteric music in the background. A medium- long shot depicts Sibel walking into the bar, passing other guests. Here again, Turkish underlines the emotional episodes in the film.37 Longing for Cahit, which is expressed in her voice over, the scene ends with Sibel’s stern request for drugs to alleviate her pain. Another emotionally and psychologically laden scene is the suicide scene of Sibel, which is her second suicide attempt in the film’s narrative. Sibel is shown playing a Turkish Ağır Roman CD before she cuts her veins. The song “Ağla Sevdam” (“Cry, My Darling”) immediately follows the nondiegetic English song by Wendy Rene, “After Laughter (Comes Tears).”38 Rene’s song is still audible as a sound bridge when the CD player is being opened.39 The camera shows a close-up of the Turkish CD being carefully put into the CD player. The next shot shows a close-up of a hand pushing the play button, which is followed by another close–up of a hand turning up the volume. This mini-series of close-ups almost functions as an introduction to a ritual suicide. It seems to be a performative act done in preparation for the cutting of the veins. While the camera then shows close-ups of Sibel crying, slapping herself, wrapping up her wound, and, later, her wound being stiched-up by a doctor, the only sound is the diegetic and nondiegetic sound of the song “Ağla Sevdam.” The Turkish song, which accompanies Sibel’s suicidal

37 This phenomenon of “native” language use for emotional situations can also be found in different colonial contexts. See for example the language use in bilingual societies such as Paraguay’s: Guaraní, a native language, is frequently used for emotional contexts, e.g. in poetry and songs, whereas Spanish dominates the language of education and bureaucracy. Linguist Almedio Aquino lectured about this phenomenon in his linguistics seminar “Indigenous Languages in America.” Dr. Almedio Aquino. “Las Lenguas Indígenas en América Latina.” Linguistics Seminar in Spanish at the Christian-Albrechts Unversity in Kiel, Germany. Spring Semester 1998.

38 On a different note, Göktürk translates Ağır Roman with “slow Roma melody.” Göktürk, “Sound Bridges: Transnational Mobility as Ironic Drama,” 157.

39 Rene’s song bridges the emotional merry-go-round of Sibel: beginning at the fair ground, continuing in the bar where Cahit kills Nico, and ending with Sibel opening the CD player in her home.

113 action, is very much imbued with deep emotions of sorrow. It seems that for Sibel, emotions of sorrow and love in particular are best expressed through a variety of Turkish language and music. Asuman Suner talks about Kara Sevda (Dark Passion) in relation to the general theme of the film.40 The theme of Kara Sevda is closely associated with painful love, suffering, and often with suicidal actions of the lover(s). Suner highlights the affinity for such love themes in Turkish cultural traditions (music, novels, cinema, etc.). The variety of Sibel’s own Turkish register is further emphasized through conversations with Cahit’s friend (who recently immigrated to Germany), with Selma (the urban cousin from Istanbul) as well as with her daughter Pamuk (born in Istanbul). Generally, Sibel uses a fairly standardized Turkish with a slight accent that many Turkish-Germans born and/or raised in Germany have.41 However, Sibel’s Turkish language use is sometimes marked by a low register. She uses vulgar words and an aggressive tone when she gets attacked at night in Istanbul. Toward her cousin Selma she becomes ruder in tone as the story progresses. Also important for the use of Turkish in the film is that in a period of a short soliloquy while watching TV, Sibel uses Turkish as her language of thought. Thus, the setting for her language plays an important role. While in Turkey she mostly prefers to speak the language of her heritage. Yet when she meets Cahit in Istanbul, her communication switches automatically to German, showing her flexibility in the languages.

40 Asuman Suner, “Dark Passion,” Sight & Sound 15, no. 3 (March 2005): 18-21.

41 Her Turkish has a slight accent that many Turkish-Germans born and/or raised in Germany have when they speak Turkish. I cannot provide scholarly work dedicated to this phenomenon. I am basing this on personal observations. 114 Sibel shows a variety of registers and styles within Turkish and German. The versatility with which Sibel performs in the languages manifests the complexity of her character. Most of Akın’s figures speak a variety of German and Turkish and illustrate the diversity among the characters regarding the variations within the languages they use as well as the ideas, opinions, and lifestyles they pursue and express in the different languages. In combination with the code switching episode discussed above, these examples of Sibel’s language use help to give insight into, but also complicate the picture about various Turkish-German identities in films. Akın’s characters’ linguistic particularities become particularly important when juxtaposed with earlier representations of language use in Turkish-German films, (roughly ranging from the 1960s/70s to the 1990s). Films from the 1960s/70s about Turkish-Germans often depict mute and victimized subjects with hardly any knowledge of German as in Helma Sanders-Brahms’s Shirins Hochzeit (Shirin’s Wedding, 1976) or Tevfik Başer’s 40 qm Deutschland (40 Squaremeters of Germany, 1986). Here the subjects are marked as eternal “others,” who cannot communicate with their neighbors or are (linguistically and economically) in a less advantageous, if not inferior, position than their German counterparts. In the 1980s, Turkish was often replaced with German. The nearly exclusive use of German since then (by the second-generation Turkish-Germans) calls for attention. Hark Bohm’s 1988 film Yasemin illustrates this phenomenon well. In contrast to the first- generation, who does not have any or hardly any knowledge of German, this generation prefers to speak German only. Turkish does not figure very prominently. They speak at the most an accented and ungrammatical Turkish. This language behavior in the film suggests a complete assimilation of the second-generation into German society through language use. This generation’s ignorance of Turkish suggests a break with ethnic ties to 115 Turkish culture, Turkey, or simply the Turkish language, which seems to mirror a political stance of assimilation in the FRG of the 1980s.42 Whereas in Yasemin, the young generation speaks like their German counterparts,43 in later films (predominantly in the 1990s), the German spoken by Turkish-German youth is portrayed as different, often as the so-called Kanak Sprak. Variations of Kanak Sprak developed within different groups of the second- and later generations of migrants. It is a variety of German marked by a different lexicon, syntax, and accent, influenced by Turkish and/or other minority languages. Turkish-Germans who speak exclusively a variety of Kanak Sprak, their own sociolect, are linguistically marked as “others.”44 Akın goes beyond a Kanak Sprak depiction of Turkish-Germans, which became popular during the 1990s. Even in Akın’s 1998 gangster film Kurz und Schmerzlos (Short Sharp Shock), which is located precisely in the milieus of minority

42 In Yasemin, the break with “Turkishness” is further epitomized through the protagonist’s flight from her patriarchal family with the help of a German teenager at the end of the film. The modern prince (he has a white motorcycle) helps the princess with Oriental trades to become completely German by escaping her threatening Turkish surrounding. (The “Turkish surrounding” is portrayed as an all-male mob trying to kidnap Yasemin and send her to Turkey).

43 In Yasemin, there is the side story of the young Turkish-German teenagers being completely assimilated into their German surrounding: Yasemin’s teacher talks about Yasemin as one of her best student in class. Also, Yasemin’s younger sister does not speak Turkish at all, and answers her parents in standard German.

44 Generally Kanak Sprak refers to a sociolect that developed out of the second and third generation ethnic minorities, especially of the Turkish-German minority. This sociolect has been named Kanak Sprak after the popularization of Zaimoğlu’s 1995 book by the same name. Especially in the 1990s there seemed to be an aestheticization of ghetto-culture in German urban sceneries. These were elevated also into the realms of literature and cinema (e.g. Lars Becker’s 2000 film Kanak Attack, Zaimoglu’s Kanak Sprack or 1997 book Abschaum), but were also visible and audible in the music and the hip hop culture of the late 1980s and 1990s. The depiction of Turkish-German youth as part of street gangs or the aestheticization of these in the arts often led to a misconception of a whole generation as marked by a certain sociolect that, consequently, marked them as “others.” For a discussion of Kanak Sprak please see: Markus C. Schulte von Drach, “Jugendsprache: Yalla, Lan! Bin ich Kino?,” sueddeutsche.de, March 19, 2007, accessed January 7, 2010, http://www.sueddeutsche.de/wissen/60/324925/text/; Wolfgang Krischke, “Sprache: ‘Ich geh Schule’,” Zeit Online, June 29, 2006, accessed January 7, 2010, http://www.zeit.de/2006/27/C-Kiezdeutsch. 116 petty criminality, the protagonists speak a local variety of the Hamburg dialect, and not a so-called Kietzdeutsch or Kanak Sprak. In his autobiographical documentary Denk ich an Deutschland - Wir haben vergessen zurückzukehren (When I Think of Germany - We Forgot to Return Home, 2001), Akın offers his audience a potpourri of accents, dialects, and languages. He depicts, for example, his mother and father, who speak a variety of the so-called Gastarbeiterdeutsch (Guest worker German), which is commonly associated with the first-generation of guest workers in Germany and is often marked by an accent and some ungrammatical expressions. His parents speak differently from each other, each with their own idiolect of German. At the same time, Akın interviews his brother, Cem Akın, and various of his Hamburg-based friends who have different national affiliations, in addition to their Hamburg-based affiliation. Akın’s friends speak a variety of Hamburgisch and are locally tied to Hamburg-Altona. In Akın’s filmic representation of Turkey, on the other hand, we encounter a variety of Turkish dialects as well as variations of English and German. Through the differing languages of his interviewees as well as through the portrayal of various locations, ranging from Hamburg-Altona, to neighborhoods in Istanbul and to the Black Sea region, which are all connected through the narrative of the documentary, Akın manages to draw a picture of a diverse and decentralized Europe. The film decentralizes belonging and regional affiliation. At the end of the film, for example, the audience is invited to ask why Akın’s cousin in Istanbul, born and raised in Hamburg and fluent in German, is not also a part of Hamburg-Altona, which she is no longer allowed to visit due to visa-regulations. Ultimately, Akın portrays a much more complicated relationship between language and identity, between language, nation, and ethnicity in his films. In Head-On,

117 there is no need to choose between German or Turkish.45 The film suggests that the second-generation Turkish-German characters manifest themselves through their language use - they are the way they speak. And no legally, governmentally imposed decision can change those facts, as can be seen, for example, in the taxi driver scene in Istanbul.46 A diversified “Turkishness,” or whatever could be seen as parts of a Turkish heritage, does not need to be denied or repressed, but should be accepted, as the film suggests in multiple forms through its, at times, paradoxical content and language.47 Internal identification is important in Head-On. In her essay “Strangers to Ourselves,” suggests the acceptance of the “other” within oneself as a relevant step toward a peaceful acceptance and co-existence with the “other.”48 This does not necessarily refer to different societies acknowledging the “other” within themselves, and thus allowing for mutual existence with the “other” in society as such (suggesting homogenous societies that could clash or co-exist). I rather believe that Kristeva’s thoughts refer to individuals who need to recognize the “other” or “others” within

45 This is highly interesting, when juxtaposed to the citizenship laws, which generally still require a choice between two nations. In order to become legally German, one has to give up the prior nationality, one has to choose which citizenship one wants or needs. This language example seems to be opposed to this legal notion of decision-making. In the film, multiple affiliations are the norm or, at least, possible.

46 This does not mean that people with an accent or different language skills cannot be integral parts of Germany/Europe. It is precisely the diversity among the linguistic competences that reflects the diversity among Germany’s/Europe’s citizenry. However on a localized reading of belonging, the regional dialects mark people aurally as part of a region that might not have been considered theirs previously.

47 The film suggests simultaneity of multiple forms of lifestyles, which can be paradox at times. For example, Sibel cooks traditional Turkish food, dances to Techno music, but also listens to Ağır Roman and Turkish pop music; she has multiple sexual partners, is married, and finally has a steady partner and a daughter. She speaks Turkish and German, using both languages in various registers. All of these actions and performances are part of her personality and thus eliminate an easy and stereotypical reading of her character.

48 Julia Kristeva, “Strangers to Ourselves,” in The Portable Kristeva, ed. Kelly Oliver (New York: Columbia UP, 2002), 264-294.

118 themselves, accepting various and changing identification processes, identities and subjectivities within oneself. A related example from the film is Cahit’s initial negative utterance about Turks. He derogatorily talks about Turks after his violent encounter with Turkish youth in a dance club and also in reaction to Sibel’s wedding preparations. He utters phrases like: “Ganzer Koffer voller Türken” (A whole suitcase full of Turks)49 and, “Ich habe keinen Bock auf diesen Kanakenfilm50!” (I don’t want to be a part of this (stinking) Turk-film).51 (The last exclamation almost serves as a Brechtian Verfremdungseffekt with its self-reflexivity and even self-irony.) In general, these examples portray Cahit’s negation of things associated with Turkey or “Turkishness” early in the film’s narrative. At this point in the narrative, Cahit is not willing to share an existence or identity with fellow Turkish-Germans.52 Sibel tells Cahit that he himself is one of them as well. Toward the end of the film’s narrative, Cahit seems more in balance. He travels to Turkey to meet his love interest Sibel after his release from prison. On the way, he is curious and open toward Istanbul’s sights and offerings, which are shown in sunlit long shots. He is depicted drinking large quantities of water and Turkish tea, playing tavla (backgammon), talking to local men, and hitting the keys on a piano in a historic 19th/20th-century hotel (Hotel Büyük Londra or Grand

49 Gegen die Wand, chapter 5, 00:26:54.

50 “Kanake” in its common use derogatorily refers to Turks in Germany; it is similar in tone to the n-word in the USA. But already early Turkish-German rap, and also several of Feridun Zaimoğlu’s literary works (e.g. Kanak Sprak) have re-appropriated this word.

51 Gegen die Wand, chapter 8, 00:46:10.

52 Although, Cahit has also several moments of spontaneous “Turkish outbreaks.” Dancing to Turkish folk music in the music venue Die Fabrik, for example, Cahit exclaims his love for Sibel in Turkish “Aşığım, Aşık!” (I am in love, in love!)

119 Hotel de Londres).53 Experiencing vibrant and sunlit Istanbul while waiting for Sibel gives Cahit a particular liveliness, which was absent from his more claustrophobic depictions in darker, indoor settings earlier in the film’s narrative. He seems to have accepted embracing, experiencing, or, at least, opening himself to different places, music, and tastes, and maybe even allowing them to be a part of himself. Ultimately, Cahit and other Turkish-German characters in the film undermine national and ethnic categorizations through their language use and lifestyle.

Language and the Extension of European Spaces: Hamburg-Istanbul

Akın complicates the depiction of Turkish-German characters by also including a Turkish figure from Istanbul in the narrative of the film. Thereby, Akın not only widens the space for his filmic settings, but he also undermines further stereotypes about Turkey and “Turkishness.” In the following, I discuss the ties that are created from Hamburg to Istanbul/Turkey by looking, in particular, at the character of Selma. The extension of Europe to Istanbul is best symbolized through an urban, Turkish businesswoman in Istanbul, Selma. Played by popular Turkish actress Meltem Cumbul, Selma personifies a “Europeanized,” or even globalized, Turkish femininity. This is marked by her lifestyle, fashion, work, and, ultimately, language use. I use one typical episode that illustrates Selma as a secular, professional, urban woman in Istanbul. In order to inquire about Sibel, Cahit visits Selma in a luxury hotel, The Marmara, where Selma has a managing position. The scene begins with a long shot of the entrance of The Marmara. The camera then tilts up to the top of the high-rise building, showing a worm’s eye perspective of the hotel. This perspective suggests economic growth and

53 Hotel Büyük Londra has been in use since the 1900s, since tourism to Istanbul began. Especially the travel with the Orient Express through Istanbul in the late 19th century has established Istanbul as a travel spot for mainly Western European visitors. For more information please see the hotel’s web site: http://www.londrahotel.net/ 120 prosperity. The voice over of Selma talking to her employees is heard at all times during these shots of The Marmara. The scene then cuts to the interior of the hotel restaurant on one of the top floors. The setting is an empty, sunlit, almost sterile, restaurant. The camera adopts Cahit’s perspective and moves towards Selma. Selma, dressed in a professional black business suit, is surrounded by men who are following her orders in a business meeting. Once Cahit is introduced, the meeting is postponed and she orders red wine for herself and water for Cahit. They start and end their conversation in Turkish. In- between, the camera pans to the windows showing a panoramic view of the Bosporus, a postcard image of Istanbul, which is framed by the windows. This is followed by a close- up of Cahit’s face as he drinks water and his code switches into English. This code switching eventually shows Selma’s command of English, which is stronger than Cahit’s.54 Throughout the scene, Cahit and Selma are shown in close-ups or in medium close-ups, revealing their concerns and thoughtfulness in their facial expressions during their conversation.

CAHIT: Selam Selma. (Hallo Selma.) SELMA: Hoşgeldin. (Welcome.) CAHIT: Hoşbulduk. (Thank you.) SELMA: Oturmazmısın? (Please sit down.) CAHIT: Tabii. (Sure.) SELMA: Geçmiş olsun. (Hope you’re doing good. Turkish idiom used when somebody just came out of prison) CAHIT: Sağ ol. (Thanks). SELMA: Nasılsın? (How are you?) CAHIT: Iyiyim. Sen nasılsın? (Good. How are you?) SELMA: Gördüğün gibi. Hala bekârım. (As you can see. Still single.) CAHIT: Ben bir su alabilirmiyim? (Can I have a glass of water, please?) SELMA: Pardon. Eren bey, bir bardak su beyefendiye, banada bir bardak kırmızı şarap. (Sorry. Mr. Eren, a glass of water for the gentleman, and a glass of red wine for me, please.)

54 The following transcription is taken from Selma’s and Cahit’s dialogue in The Marmara hotel. Gegen die Wand, chapter 17, 01:35:06-01:40:17. 121 CAHIT: Sana aldım birşey. (I bought you this.) SELMA: Niye zahmet etdin? (You shouldn’t have.) CAHIT: Yani, birşey değil. (Oh, that is nothing. You’re welcome.) SELMA: Nerde kalıyorsun? (Where are you staying?) CAHIT: Ben’mi? Şey, Büyük Londra’da. (Me, eh, in the Büyük Londra.) SELMA: Hoş hotel. (Nice hotel.) CAHIT: Fena değil. (Not bad.) SELMA: Teşekkür ederim. (Thank you. To the waiter) CAHIT: Sibel nerde? (Where is Sibel?) SELMA: Burda. Istanbul’da. (Here. In Istanbul.) CAHIT: Beni ona götür. Lütfen. (Bring me to her. Please.) SELMA: Olmaz. (No.) CAHIT: Niye? (Why?) SELMA: Yeni bir hayatı var. Sevgilisi var, cocuğu var. Sana ihtiyaci yok. (She has a new life. She has a lover, a child. She does not need you anymore.) CAHIT: How do you know that? When I met Sibel the first time, I was dead. I was dead even long time before I met her. Ben kendimi kaybettim çokdan. (I lost myself a long time ago.) Then she come and drop into my life. She gives me love. Then she gives me power. Anladın’mı? (Do you understand?) Do you understand? How strong you are Selma? Are you strong enough to stand between me and her? SELMA: Are you strong enough to destroy her life? CAHIT: Hayır, değilim. (No, I am not.)

The dialogue between Cahit and Selma starts with formulaic questions and answers. After the formalities of greeting and hospitality are established, Cahit begins to ask about Sibel and the conversation becomes more serious. The conversation begins and ends in Turkish. Unable to express his emotions entirely in Turkish, Cahit switches to English. This interlude in English refers to the Hollywood language of love, or global music of love as well as to the language of commerce.55 In the following, however, I would like to discuss mainly Turkish femininity and language use.

55 Göktürk points out that Cahit’s line “She gives me love” is borrowed from a 1978 Grateful Dead song. Göktürk, “Sound Bridges: Transnational Mobility as Ironic Drama,” 155.

122 The depiction of Selma in this episode is opposed to stereotypical presuppositions about Turkish femininity as I have discussed elsewhere.56 In many films from the 1970s- 1990s that depict Turkish femininity, the audience is often confronted with rural or folkloric images of silenced Turkish women. The image of Selma in Head-On provides a rare, talkative, urban, and secular view of Turkish femininity in German film. Selma’s Turkish is educated; she uses a high register and speaks an Istanbul dialect. Furthermore, her English proves to be fluent as it is adequate for an ambitious businesswoman. Selma can communicate in the lingua franca of commerce.57 In that, Selma shifts the perspective from a mute subject, with limited communications skills to a multilingual subject in an urban business setting. Göktürk adds in relation to this sequence that English also functions as a symbol of “international tourism and business.”58 She specifically refers to “The Marmara” hotel and its location in Taxim Square, which is “a real site and favorite meeting place” in Istanbul.59 Furthermore, by ordering wine, Selma is also decoupled from a stereotypical, naturalized link between “Turkishness” and Islam. By ordering an alcoholic beverage, Selma, as a Turkish woman, is secularized and freed from clichéd depictions of Turkish femininity in German film. The camera enforces this decoupling process by showing close-ups of a wine glass as Selma takes a sip before she answers Cahit. Selma tells Cahit

56 Berna Gueneli, “Questions of Female Agency in Early Turkish-German Film: Helma Sanders’s Shirins Hochzeit and Tevfik Başer’s 40 qm Deutschland” (Paper presented at the Second Biannial Graduate Student Conference, Department of Germanic Studies, Beyond Berlin: Local Cultures in East and West Germany, 1945 – 1989, The University of Texas at Austin, March 27, 2008).

57 Talking about the diverse figures in Head-On, Ezli refers briefly to the capitalist aspirations of Selma. Ezli, “Von der Identität zur Individuation: Gegen die Wand - eine Problematisierung kultureller Identitätszuschreibungen,” 295.

58 Göktürk, “Sound Bridges: Transnational Mobility as Ironic Drama,” 155.

59 Ibid. 123 (the legal husband of Sibel) that she will not help him to find Sibel (who now has a lover and a child). In doing so, Selma further challenges stereotypes about Turkish femininity. She approves of a secular partnership and an extramarital child as a lifestyle. This lifestyle goes against traditional notions of Islamic family constellations, which prescribe a religious marital ceremony, conception of a child within the marriage, and prohibits extramarital sexual activity at all times. However, it should be noted at this point that with Selma’s character, the director constructs a stereotype of an urban, global businesswoman. It seems that one stereotype is replaced by another: The victimized, mute, folkloric Turkish woman of so many earlier films, becomes a single, frustrated, divorced, workaholic woman of a global, capitalist society. The last shot of Selma is a long shot showing her sitting alone at the long table, drinking wine. This is a figure familiar to western European audiences. Through the figure of Selma (an Istanbulite), among other instances in the film, Istanbul becomes connected to Europe. Through both her visual and aural portrayal it becomes easy to equate Selma with other professionals in London, Paris, or Berlin. Thus, Istanbul might be recognized as a place that is similar to any European urban business setting. The film supports this urbanism as expressed through Selma’s character similarly with narratives of travel in Head-On. The film creates new images of the traveling Turkish-German or Turkish woman. This becomes particularly evident looking at the multilingual travels of Sibel, Cahit, and Selma. Today, multilingual Turkish-Germans like Sibel and Cahit can easily move southeast to Turkey to find a different lifestyle, to move away from an earlier life, or to pursue their love interests. They are shown as restless characters in transit. They travel to Turkey and are able to communicate in Turkish, German, or English, although this might result in miscommunications, frustrations, and violent encounters, at times. Certainly, transport and accessibility of 124 travel have changed in the last decades. Nevertheless, their travel calls for comparisons with prior images of Turkish migration. The depiction of the second-generation of Turkish-Germans traveling to Turkey is different than early depictions of Turkish work migrants, who were shown moving in the reverse direction, arriving in Germany in crowded trains, speaking hardly any German, and staying in overcrowded hostels.60 The new generation is no longer a part of the immigration culture, with which their parents’ generation was still associated. However, Sibel’s initial work as a silent chambermaid in a Turkish hotel recalls images of work migration to Germany (reminiscent of unskilled Turkish migrants working in low paid jobs). Yet, this remains merely an allusion to the first-generation of work migrants, since, in another episode, we see Sibel as a Turkish woman who consumes alcohol and abuses drugs, in stark contrast with earlier depictions of Turkish migrant women in film. Sibel goes to Turkey to escape her unforgiving father and brother, and to start a new life with the help of her cousin; Cahit follows her to Istanbul to reunite with his love interest. It is an emotionally driven movement instead of an economically driven one. Most importantly, the characters, once they arrived in Turkey, can communicate and negotiate with their surroundings. They are not bound to a specific place, but can, in fact, decide to move in any direction. They are marked by a flexible mobility, which they are in control of, and which was absent from the depiction of their parents’ migration. Selma further complicates images of Turkish travel. To attend Sibel’s wedding, Selma travels from Istanbul to Hamburg by plane, stays in a hotel, and travels back to Istanbul after her visits. All of these localities - airport, planes, and hotel entry - are shown with brief long shots indicating their relevance. This travel episode in particular

60 For a detailed historical discussion of guest workers in Germany see: Herbert, A History of Foreign Labor in Germany, 1880-1980; Chin, The Guest Worker Question in Postwar Germany. 125 makes subtle statements about other forms of travel in the 21st century that depict non- work related travel from the southeast to the northwest of Europe, freeing the privileged image of flexible travel from a mainly Western, capitalist society. Selma epitomizes flexible and self-confident movement, opposing two stereotypical depictions of Turkish travel and migration. On the one hand, looking back to the 1970s, Selma’s movement is opposed to earlier depictions of Turkish guest workers’ migration, which was often shown as a “one-way” migration, traveling from the southern “old home” to the new destination in the European Northwest, which promised economic progress. On the other hand, looking toward the new millennium, Selma’s travel is also opposed to fearful assumptions that Turks will rush into Germany, into the “Christian Club” of the European Union to stay for good once Turkey is accepted into the EU.61 Selma’s travel exemplifies the possibility of a transitory travelling Turkish woman, a movement that was for a long time reserved for European - especially West European - vocational and holiday travelers in films. On a similar note, Göktürk writes, for example, “Narrative structure as well as acting and staging in Gegen die Wand signal a self-confident mobility, that transcends conventional migration stories of leaving home and arriving in a new land.”62 Characters in Head-On possess flexibility in their mobility that allows them to move in either direction of the Bosporus. Through these flexible mobilities within the narrative of the film, Istanbul, thus Turkey, becomes connected to Europe. It is not as remote and distinct from European regions as prior films like Bohm’s Yasemin or Yilmaz Arslan’s 1998 film Yara might

61 Please see a 2008 discussion on EurActive for further details on public opinions on Turkey’s possible EU entry: “Die Türkei in der EU - Was denkt die Öffentlichkeit?,” EurActive.com, May 29, 2008, accessed January 9, 2010, http://www.euractiv.com/de/prioritaten/trkei-eu-denkt-ffentlichkeit/article-172809.

62 Göktürk, “Sound Bridges: Transnational Mobility as Ironic Drama,” 154. 126 have suggested. In these previous films, Turkey was referred to as a threatening place. Ultimately, Istanbul can be experienced as any European cosmopolitan city. This is further alluded to with settings shown in Istanbul. These mirror events and occurrences in Hamburg. The film juxtaposes a vibrant nightlife, diverse work and business environments as well as harsh milieus of violence and drug abuse in both cities. Both cities prove to be metropolises that are connected through the multilingual characters and through the dynamism and diversity that the dense cityscapes and people therein provide.

CONCLUSION

Through Head-On and its characters’ language use Akın creates a polyglot, traversable Europe. Akın’s protagonists, the travelers of Hamburg and Istanbul, are not easily categorizable. The Turkish-German characters in the film identify with various languages, musical traditions, tastes, lifestyles, and so forth, and thereby help to undermine national and ethnic categorizations. They are complicated characters with complex and paradox wishes and fantasies who are not portrayed as unreal, but, ultimately, as human. “Turkishness,” “Germanness,” “Turkish-Germanness” as well as “Europeanness” become complicated entities. Akın manages to portray a linguistic as well as cultural diversity that is inherent in each of these “-nesses.” He portrays a diversified vision of previously essentialized categories. By using glimpses of clichéd images and utterances (such as Sibel as low paid unskilled worker in an Istanbul hotel, or Yılmaz as the male protector of family honor in Hamburg-Altona), familiar from earlier Turkish-German films from the 1970s and 80s, and then reversing them with unexpected turns and twists, Akın invites the audience to rethink their preconceptions. Further, by depicting different

127 ideological stances among the Turkish and Turkish-German communities, and by recording a diversified sound of the Turkish language (as spoken by Sibel, Mr. and Mrs. Güner as well by Selma and others) in the film, the director manages to open up the categories of “Turkish” and “Turkish-German.” Ethnic difference becomes a part of Europe’s sights and sounds. “Europeanness” becomes an acceptance of these differences on a daily basis within the spheres of Europe, which might include Istanbul.

128 Chapter Three: Soundscapes in The Edge of Heaven

I try to find the right information for the image. I try to find the right images. The music in my film is also important. I am still doing my DJing in Hamburg. I am a cinema DJ. I can mix Fassbinder with Fellini. Cinema reminds of sampling. Costa Gavras' movie Missing influenced me. I tried to shoot the runaway scene like Polanski would do it. I try to watch a movie a day. I watched a lot of silent movies before this. I really tried to tell the story in the form of a silent movie, without language. This is DJing.

Fatih Akın on music, camera, and editing in The Edge of Heaven.1

INTRODUCTION

Making music and making movies are both integral components of Akın’s creative endeavors. His affiliation with music is underscored by his interest in DJing in Hamburg, but also through his “exquisite musical sense” in the soundtrack of his films.2 In his films, the moviegoer experiences unique musical mixes and juxtapositions, besides a nuanced view of characters, dialogues, and settings. Akın samples music and voices from a variety of European regions, from urban and rural areas. These sounds become a specific tool to provide an aural experience of contemporary Europe, which accentuates multiethnicity, multilingualism, and diversity.3 Through the musical soundtrack as well as through the sound of the diverse voices in the dialogues and songs, Akın provides his

1 Badt, “Fatih Akin ‘The Other Site of Heaven’.”

2 “Fatih Akin: ‘El cine y la cocina tienen muchos elementos en común’,” elmundo.es, March 30, 2010, accessed July 22, 2010, http://www.elmundo.es/elmundo/2010/03/29/cultura/1269861236.html.

3 Talking about the film music in contemporary Hollywood cinema as opposed to classic Hollywood films, Kassabian also talks about the changes in film music with the inclusion of new ethnicities, races and sexualities in filmic narratives. She stresses that films such as Malxom X and Mi Familia/My Family allow to “consider film music's role in the changing pressures of identity formations such as race, ethnicity, sexuality, and gender.” Such films have “not only changed the narrative landscape of mainstream movie making, but they have also significantly broadened its range of musical materials.” Anahid Kassabian, Hearing Film: Tracking Identification in Contemporary Hollywood Film Music (New York: Routledge, 2001), 4.

129 audience with a diversified aural perception of Europe. While the mise-en-scène highlights various European landscapes through many long shots, the soundtrack specifically emphasizes diversity by providing both the accented language of the six main characters and musical heterogeneity in the highly selective diegetic and nondiegetic songs in the film.4 The small number of diegetic songs (eight) in this rather tranquil and contemplative film as well as the nondiegetic meditative original score that works as a leitmotif in the film’s soundtrack put an emphasis on the particular selection of the songs and ask for a specific scrutiny of the heterogeneous music. The seemingly eclectic selection of diegetic songs, which sets the mood for the scenes and is actively listened to by the filmic characters, ranges from Turkish folk, to Balkan club, to classical music such as compositions by Johann Sebastian Bach played on a banjo. Through Akın’s musical choices and juxtapositions, ethnic and national categories once again become complicated entities. That is, image and sound work closely together to create an aesthetic of heterogeneity. This final chapter focuses on the creation of this particular aural experience of a heterogeneous Europe through film sound (music and dialogue). Music and sound have been intrinsically linked to films since the very beginning of cinema, even in the early years of silent film.5 Live music was used to cover the noise of the projector, or to give dramatic and aesthetic sensations to the audiences watching

4 Göktürk refers to the audio commentary of Fatih Akın, who states that he uses less close-ups in this film (than in Head-On or In Juli) and that these changes on camera eventually lead to a more distant perception of Turkey in The Edge of Heaven. Göktürk, “Mobilität und Stillstand im Weltkino digital,” 20.

5 Irwin Bazelon, “Film Music: A Short History,” in Knowing the Score: Notes on Film Music (New York et al.: Van Nostrand Reinhold Company, 1975), 13; James Buhler, Caryl Flinn, and David Neumeyer, eds., “Introduction,” in Music and Cinema (Hanover and London: University Press of New England, 2000), 1; Jon Burlingame, Sound and Vision: 60 Years of Motion Picture Soundtrack (New York: Billboard Books, 2000), 1; Claudia Gorbman, Unheard Melodies (Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 1987), 36ff.

130 the first flickering images on the screen. The use of film music, film commentators, or film effects to make sound visible suggests that film sound has been an important element since cinema’s birth.6 Nevertheless, up until recently, film sound has not received much attention in film scholarship.7 In his book on film sound in contemporary Hollywood films, film scholar Gianluca Sergi criticizes previous scholarship for neglecting sound. Sergi argues that the critical scrutiny of films has been predominantly focused on the visual aspects.8 Textual analyses, which are the main tool for film scholarship, have been “remarkably impervious to all things sound.”9 While there are scholarly analyses on sound (e.g. Michel Chion), these, Sergi continues, have often been either conflated with music alone, leaving out a large proportion of the soundtrack, or they have been analyzed in isolation from the rest of the film on a technical, “micro level.”10 Innovative work on film music is in fact not rare, works such as Roger Hillman’s 2005 Unsettling Scores on classical music in New German Cinema, Claudia Gorbman’s seminal 1987 Unheard Melodies, Anahid Kassabian’s 2001 book Hearing Film on contemporary Hollywood films and the function of film music, Amy Herzog’s 2010 study on musicals Dreams of Difference, Songs of the Same, or anthologies on film music such as European Film Music and Movie Music, The Film Reader provide a broad array

6 Michel Chion briefly discusses sound effects used in silent film. Michel Chion, Film, A Sound Art, trans. Claudia Gorbman (New York: Columbia University Press, 2009), 6, 7, 9.

7 Daniel Goldmark, Lawrence Kramer, and Richard Leppert, “Introduction: Phonoplay: Recasting Film Music,” in Beyond the Soundtrack: Representing Music in Cinema, ed. Daniel Goldmark, Lawrence Kramer, and Richard Leppert (Berkeley, Los Angeles, London: University of California Press, 2007), 2.

8 Gianluca Sergi, The Dolby Era: Film Sound in Contemporary Hollywood (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2004), 4.

9 Ibid., 136.

10 Ibid., 137, 139.

131 of original scholarship.11 While these books offer insights into the function and role of music in film, they do not discuss many of the other sound elements that Segi urges us to include in sound scholarship.12 Sergi opts for a more “organic approach” to sound and soundtrack.13 He states that the soundtrack of a film “is a highly complex combination of four elements – [sound] effect, music, dialogue, and silence – whose qualities are intrinsically blended. Indeed, it is the relationship of these four elements that I regard as the core of the soundtrack,” he continues.14 Furthermore, this organic and interrelational approach to sound in film also suggests a more creative appreciation of a film element that has often been read as a purely technical feature, excluding it from the creative aspects of film production in academic research.15

Movies are about making connections between things that couldn't possibly be connected in a single real life moment or, at least, in a way that you could be aware of in any sense. Sound is one of the best ways to make those connections.

11 James Buhler, Caryl Flinn, and David Neumeyer, eds., Music and Cinema (Hanover and London: Wesleyan University Press, 2000); Kay Dickinson, ed., Movie Music: The Film Reader (London and New York: Routledge, 2003); Gorbman, Unheard Melodies; Roger Hillman, Unsettling Scores: German Film, Music, and ideology (Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 2005); Amy Herzog, Dreams of Difference, Songs of the Same (Minneapolis and London: University of Minnesota Press, 2010); Kassabian, Hearing Film: Tracking Identification in Contemporary Hollywood Film Music; Miguel Mera and David Burnand, eds., European Film Music (Hampshire and Burlington: Ashgate, 2006).

12 Altman’s piece in the anthology Music and Cinema is an exception. It advocates a methodological renewal of film music scholarship. Altman et al. suggest looking at film music in combination with other film sound elements e.g. dialogue and effect. Rick Altman, “Inventing the Cinema Soundtrack: Hollywood’s Multiple Sound System,” in Music and Cinema, ed. James Buhler, Caryl Flinn, and David Neumeyer (Hanover and London: University Press of New England, 2000), 339-359.

13 Sergi, The Dolby Era, 140ff.

14 Ibid., 6, 7.

15 Ibid., 143.

132 It's about making connections between characters and places and ideas and experiences.16 In the quote above, sound designer Randy Thom talks about the connections that are produced in film through sound. I strongly agree with the assertion that sound is both an aesthetic and technical device that can serve as a connecting tool (especially in Akın’s films). This is a strategy that is well employed by Akın. The motif of interwoven connections and relations of people, places, and things material, is aesthetically achieved through the general aural dimensions in Akın’s films, which complements Akın’s use of mise-en-scène and dialogue. In this chapter, I discuss the soundtrack of The Edge of Heaven, which I use as an exemplary film for creations of aural scenes in Akın’s work. Following Sergi’s definition of soundtrack, the focus here is on the sound of two main elements that he mentions: music and dialogue (languages). Three of the soundtrack segments that Sergi discusses are predominant in Akın’s film: silence, dialogue, and music. In terms of visions of Europe in the film, music and dialogue are the most prominent sound elements in The Edge of Heaven. I argue that through his soundtrack, Akın - who as a multilingual, freelance DJ has a sensibility for musical and lingual sounds - displays the fundamentally changed sound of post-1989 Europe compared to films before the fall of the Wall and later the fall of the Soviet Union.17 By incorporating East and South European as well as Turkish regional sounds in his films, Akın creates the aural experience of a mélange of sounds. These diegetic and nondiegetic sounds mirror on an aural level the political and

16 Randy Thom and Philip Brophy, “Randy Thom In Conversation: Designing a Movie for Sound,” in Cinesonic, ed. Philip Brophy (NSW: Southwood Press, 2000), 10.

17 Akın has worked as DJ Superdjango during his freetime and mainly played in Hamburg clubs. Badt, “Fatih Akin ‘The Other Site of Heaven’.”; “Akin, Fatih.”; “Fatih Akin: ‘Me estaba oscureciendo a mí mismo con tanta tragedia’.”; “48 FIC XiXÓn: Festival International de Cine de Gijón 19 - 28 Noviembre de 2009.”

133 social shifts and changes in Europe.18 Similar to casting, setting, and mise-en-scène, the soundtrack exhibits connections and mixes between entities; musical, lyrical, instrumental, and melodic as well as lingual mixes dominate the soundtrack in The Edge of Heaven. Film scholar Goldmark et al. mention that film music follows a film’s narrative and also has a life and identity of its own. I believe that Akın’s entire polyphonic soundtrack (music and dialogue) is intrinsically linked to and in exchange with the film’s narrative, image, and general aesthetics.19 Akın has mentioned numerous times in interviews that he has no position on Turkey’s accession to the European Union.20 Yet, he is a political filmmaker who displays through his sounds, visuals, and narratives, stories that are deeply interwoven within European spaces.21 He calls The Edge of Heaven “an open discussion” in terms of Turkey’s EU entry, displaying various perspectives on the issue. Akın’s “open discussion” is lead through various filmic means, including the soundtrack of the film, which seems to be self-evident in its pro-pan-European visions. The music and voices in his film reach across boundaries and borders. I discuss the travels of sounds through European spaces. The boundary-free musical space of Europe becomes evident by discussing the original score by Shantel as well as by looking at the musical choices and compositions made by Akın and Shantel.

18 These shifts and changes include the accession of several Eastern European countries to the EU as well as the increased East/West and South/North migration of European and non-European citizens.

19 Goldmark, Kramer, and Leppert, “Introduction: Phonoplay: Recasting Film Music,” 3.

20 Akın says, for example, that he has “no position on the European Union. The film is an open discussion. Every positive has a negative.” Badt, “Fatih Akin ‘The Other Site of Heaven’.”

21 In an interview with sueddeutsche.de, Akın states that he has been deeply influenced by political filmmaking. Gesell, “Ein gnadenloser Romantiker.”

134 The discussion of the sound of dialogues in the film further underscores the polyphonic sound of Europe. In his films, Akın emphasizes that the sound of Europe is as diverse as its people. Close readings of selected scenes show that variations of languages, dialects, and accents become the aural norm and replace the idea that “strange” sounds and languages are limited to the alien, “other” immigrant in the Western city.22 Film scholar Hamid Naficy argues for the importance of the protagonist’ accents in “accented cinema.” These become a part of the “accented style,” which is an aesthetic category that Naficy organizes around exilic, diasporic, and ethnic filmmaking.23 Naficy states that such alteration of sound is relevant in order to make the migrant, the “other,” audible and force the “dominant cinema to speak in a minoritarian language.”24 While Naficy’s interventions are relevant, in his discussion of films, the “accents” are limited to the “accented” language of the migrants moving into the “West.” Thereby, it does not allow for the democratization of accents, which are a phenomenon of all people. Although Naficy mentions that “it is impossible to speak without an accent,” in his films of interest, it is predominantly the migrants who speak with accents.25 The scholar does not include the “accented” language of “Westerners.” Akın takes Naficy’s theory a step further. In his films, be it in In July, Head-On, or The Edge of Heaven, protagonists from all cultural backgrounds speak with “accents” or dialects. As I will discuss further below, Akın democratizes “accented” languages in the filmic depiction of linguistic sounds in The Edge of Heaven.

22 Discussing the sound of cities, Fran Tonkiss addresses how immigrants have been traditionally perceived as other in the city. Tonkiss, “Aural Postcards: Sound, Memory and the City,” 305.

23 Naficy, An Accented Cinema, 10, 11, 23, 24, 25.

24 Ibid., 25.

25 Ibid., 23. 135 The Edge of Heaven is the second part of Akın’s trilogy: Liebe, Tod und Teufel (Love, Death, and the Devil). Death is a central theme in the film and a motif that brings the protagonists into motion. The Edge of Heaven consists of three parent-child constellations: Necat and Ali (a retired guest worker in Bremen and his second- generation Turkish-German son, who works as a Professor of German literature in Hamburg), Yeter and Ayten (a Turkish prostitute working in Bremen and her estranged daughter, who is a student activist in Istanbul), and Susanne and Lotte (a former 68-er who is estranged from her spoiled daughter, who is a student in Hamburg and falls in love with Ayten). The film tells the stories of reconciliation and love of these six characters and how their paths cross or fail to cross in the event of two deaths (Yeter and Lotte). All of the characters are depicted travelling within Germany (displaying Hamburg and Bremen) or to and from Turkey (displaying Istanbul neighborhoods, Black Sea towns and cities). While The Edge of Heaven offers a multitude of filmic layers to be discussed, I will concentrate on the aural dimensions of the film and investigate what kinds of sounds are interwoven with the visuals and narrative in the film.

THE SOUND OF MUSIC IN THE EDGE OF HEAVEN

Akın and Shantel

Michel Chion states that the arrival of sound has given film a language, an ethnicity, and an identity.26 Discussing film music, he continues to say that in contemporary film,

each insistence of music in a movie fits into its own culture and stylistic cubbyhole. The various brands of “world music” that have become popular in

26 Chion, Film, A Sound Art, 85. (Emphasis mine)

136 many recent films (…) juxtapose, without seeking to blend, harmonies, rhythms, melodic lines, and musical logics that we sense come from different places and should not be combined.27

Akın clearly articulates musically and visually in his films that there are no isolated, distinct musical cultures. He works against a “sense” that different musical cultures “should not be combined.” The musical soundtrack of The Edge of Heaven provides a productive blend of musical styles; indeed, the film’s sound suggests that the act of blending and combination is the norm and, thus, strives against essentialist aesthetics, and promotes instead, an aesthetic of heterogeneity. This is further underscored through

Akın’s choice to work together with musician Shantel. Akın collaborated with Romanian-German DJ and producer Shantel (Stefan Hantel) for the soundtrack of The Edge of Heaven and his 2009 comedy Soul Kitchen. Shantel, who was responsible for the original score to The Edge of Heaven, is known for creative musical mixes of seemingly disparate regions. As the recipient of BBC Radio’s World Music Award 2006, Shantel was celebrated for his musical innovations blending Balkan sounds with predominantly Western European electronic dance music. Born in Frankfurt, Shantel first studied design in Paris, but came back to Germany to start his career as a DJ. Inspired by electronic music and the arts of dub and sampling, Shantel soon revived the field of electronic music with musical mixes from the Balkans as, for example, with his 2005 album Bucovina Club.28 This combination of music brought a new sound onto European dance floors.

27 Ibid., 104, 105.

28 Dub is a musical technique that implies the remixing of existing songs. This might imply the adding of new instruments (drums and bass) or new voices over the existing recordings. Dub is practiced since the late 1960s and, especially, since the early 1970s. It is particularly linked to reggae, but also appears in other genres such as punk and post-punk. For further information please see: Steve Barrow and Peter Dalton, “Dub Albums: History of Dub Music,” Roots Archives, accessed June 16, 2010, http://www.roots- archives.com/dub/; “Dub (ii),” Grove Music Online, accessed July 19, 2010, 137 As BBC contributor Garth Cartwright states, Shantel

believed that with a little electronic tweaking he could blend Balkan Gypsy tunes into his DJ set. Calling his Frankfurt DJ nights Bucovina Club, he attracted an audience well up for raving to heaving tubas and scalding trumpets.29

Shantel brings to his electronic dance music, and thereby, to his mixed audience in Germany and elsewhere, the rhythms and instruments from the Balkan region Bucovina. Bucovina, a culturally mixed region, which also has a rich Jewish folk music culture, itself stands for mixed populations.30

Shantel called his night Bucovina because his maternal ancestors have roots in the region, once part of the mighty Habsburg Empire but now partly in Romania and partly . Bucovina Club Volume 2 features Balkan heavyweights Goran Bregovic and Fanfare Ciocarlia alongside a Gypsy take on North African anthem Ya Rayah and other material.31

His concept was and is a critical and financial success. Touring from Turkey to Britain, from Italian fashion shows to rock festivals around Europe, Shantel manages to bring together musical elements and instruments as well as audiences from various regions of Europe. “Shantel’s vision is to create a pan-European pop music with global appeal,” states the official page of his recording company essay recordings. The DJ emphasizes, though, that he does not see himself as a “prophet of multiculturalism,” but

http://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/subscriber/article/grove/music/49858?q=dubbing&search=quick&pos= 4&_start=1#firsthit.

29 Garth Cartwright, “Awards for World Music: Winner 2006 DJ Shantel (Germany),” BBC Radio, February 2007, accessed May 24, 2010, http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio3/worldmusic/a4wm2006/a4wm_shantel.shtml.

30 “Bucovina,” Encyclopedia, Encyclopædia Britannica. Encyclopædia Britannica Online, accessed February 27, 2011, http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/83980/Bukovina.

31 Cartwright, “Awards for World Music: Winner 2006 DJ Shantel (Germany).”

138 rather as a “cosmopolitan” whose travels are a constant search to bring together new ideas and emotions with his personal musical style.32 Looking at one particular example from the soundtrack (CD) of The Edge of Heaven (“Ta Travudia”), Shantel’s musical, “cosmopolitan” voyages become evident.33 The song “Ta Travudia,” which is also featured in Shantel’s 2005 Bucovina Club, is a dance hall remix by British musician and DJ Rootsman. Rootsman is reggae inspired and has musical influences from the Balkans, especially in his 2001 album Roots Bloody Rootsman, in which “Ta Travudia” is sampled. Italian singer Rosapaeda sings the original song.34 The song has an esoteric and psychedelic feel, and, at the same time, it exhibits a blend of East, South, and West European dance rhythms. Rosapaeda, a southern Italian musician, whose music is described as world music with reggae influences, originally sings the song in a Greek dialect.35 Her lyrics remind listeners of Greek remnants in Southern Italy. Variations of Greek are still spoken today in that region. The language is a linguistic relict of pre-Roman times, as argued by classicist Gerhard Rohlfs.36 Shantel brings this aural potpourri to Germany, and projects it from here to the global music

32 For more details on Shantel’s background, his DJ performance, and reception see: “esssay recordings new releases: Shantel Authentic e.p.,” essay recordings, June 15, 2010, http://www.essayrecordings.com/essay_authentic.htm; Cartwright, “Awards for World Music: Winner 2006 DJ Shantel (Germany).”; “Shantel Biography,” last.fm, April 20, 2009, May 24, 2010, http://www.last.fm/music/Shantel/+wiki.

33 “Ta Travudia” is recorded on the soundtrack to the film, but it does not feature in the film itself. Rootsman. “Ta Travudia.” Auf Der Anderen Seite / Edge of Heaven (Essay Recordings, 2007).

34 “Rosapaeda: Biographia,” Rosapaeda Official Website, accessed May 25, 2010, http://www.rosapaeda.it/.

35 Ibid.; “Free Radical Sounds.com: Music Reviews-CD’s & Vinyl,” accessed May 25, 2010, http://freeradicalsounds.com/mayroo.htm.

36 Gerhard Rohlfs, “Greek Remnants in Southern Italy,” The Classical Journal 62, no. 4 (January 1967): 164-169.

139 scene. Thus, the complicated travels and implications of the song “Ta Travudia” (The Songs mod. Greek and Griko)37 and its musical and lingual mixes throughout Europe (from Southern Italy to Britain to Germany onto the global dance hall scene) once again underscore Shantel’s ambitions to portray porous boundaries between musical styles in Europe. The above-mentioned artists involved in the production of the song - Shantel, Rootsman, and Rosapaeda – are reggae influenced. Reggae, also a favored and inspiring musical genre of Akın, implies the constantly changing forms of the genre and becomes a binding element between the musicians.38 Ultimately, reggae, which stands for hybrid forms of musical instruments and rhythms, becomes a musical metaphor for the aesthetics of heterogeneity in the film. Not only does Shantel create an innovative, productive connection to the Balkan or southern Italian regions, but, for the soundtrack of The Edge of Heaven, he also extends his sampling to eastern Turkish regions such as the Black Sea. Next to tracks inspired by the Balkans such as “Inel Inel de Aur – Bucovina Dub,” he also produces tracks such as “Ben Seni In Dub.” Beginning with his collaboration with Akın on The Edge of Heaven, Turkish songs are added to the world of electronic dub produced by Shantel.39

37 “English-Griko Dictionary,” English-Griko Dictionary, accessed June 16, 2010, http://www.molossia.org/griko2.html.

38 For more details on the history and musical specificity of reggae, please see: Stephen Davis, “Grove Music Online: Reggae,” Oxford Music Online, 2007, accessed July 15, 2010, http://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/subscriber/article/grove/music/23065?q=reggae&search=quick&pos=1 &_start=1#firsthit.

39 The CD to the film offers in addition to the music in the film, a variety of extra Turkish and international songs. The homepage of essay recordings describes the music of The Edge of Heaven as follows: “The music for this drama is like a soundtrack to a road movie. Accompanying our protagonists the music oscillates between traditional tracks from Istanbul and the Black Sea - home of the much too 140 The music for The Edge of Heaven was chosen and sampled with close advice from and collaboration with Akın himself.40 Akın is familiar with the Black Sea region and its musical traditions as well as with urban Istanbul and classic and popular Turkish music. While Akın’s paternal family is from the Black Sea area, he also has relatives in Istanbul. Akın spent most of his childhood vacations in both of these areas in Turkey.41 Furthermore, Turkish films and music from the 1970s and 1980s are generally part of a Turkish-German cultural heritage of many Turkish families living in Germany in the 1980s. During these pre-satellite times high numbers of videocassettes and music cassettes were sold or rented to many Turkish families in Turkish greengrocer or other stores in Germany.42 Akın’s musical insights and Shantel’s musical innovations are crucial for the creation of the soundtrack. Akın chooses to work with Shantel for aesthetic reasons. The connecting link between the artists is the belief in openness of music and a curiosity about new musical short-lived singer/ Kazim Koyuncu, who wrote the main track - and European club and dub sounds. Acclaimed Bucovina mastermind Shantel followed these traces to compose a haunting, atmospheric score in which he fuses the different influences in his unique style.” Please see: “CD Release Auf der anderen Seite,” essay recordings, July 28, 2010, http://www.essayrecordings.com/essay_adas.htm.

40 In an email exchange, co-producer of Corazón International and music advisor of Akın Klaus Maek informed me about Akın’s collaboration in the music and sound selection process. “Der Score ist in enger Zusammenarbeit zwischen Shantel und Fatih Akin entstanden. Die Tracks wurden zusammen ausgesucht und die Bearbeitung der Stücke besprochen … je nach den Filmausschnitten, für die die Musik gebraucht wurde.” (The score developed through close collaboration between Shantel and Fatih Akın. The tracks were chosen collaboratively and their reworking was discussed… depending on the film scenes, in which the music was needed. Klaus Maeck, “The Edge of Heaven Musik,” May 26, 2010.

41 Akın mentions and displays the birthplaces of his father (in Filyos) and grandfather (in Çamburnu) in the documentary Fatih Akın – Tagebuch eines Filmreisenden (Fatih Akın– Diary of a Film Traveler). The director has spend most of his childhood vacations in Filyos. Akın further states that his pre-shooting travel in Turkey, especially in Çamburnu, has been crucial for the visual aesthetics of The Edge of Heaven. Monique Akın. Dir. Fatih Akin – Diary of a Film Traveler. Corazón International, 2007. 9:20; 22:00ff; 37:42ff; 49:42ff.

42 Andreas Goldberg discusses the chronology of Turkish media use in Germany since the beginning of the guest worker recruitment program in Germany. Goldberg, “Medien der Migrant/Innen.”

141 mixes and creations. Ultimately, Akın’s cinematic visions of Europe are matched with Shantel’s musical visions of a pan-European dance floor, of a “boundary-free spirit of Balkan and South Eastern Europe music tunes.”43 The alliance of both artists grounds their mutual belief in a pan-European musical fusion.

Transition Scenes: Germany and Turkey

In creating the original musical score for The Edge of Heaven, Shantel followed the musical “traces [from Istanbul and Black Sea musical traditions as well as club and dub sounds] to compose a haunting, atmospheric score in which he fuses the different influences in his unique style.”44 These sounds appear to be musical leitmotivs in the film.45 The original score is essentially one piece of film music. Akın explains in an interview in the extra features of the film’s DVD that the individual tracks of the original song are used for different scenes.46 Each track represents one instrument from the song (such as guitars, violins, and so forth) and is associated with a different figure in the film. Therefore, one piece of music becomes many through the splitting into different tracks. Thus, the nondiegetic music in the film is different yet part of the same. The individual tracks are part of a larger entity, as the individual figures are part of a larger network of people. The original score and its variations appear in various different (geographical) settings, creating an aural continuity.

43 “esssay recordings new releases: Shantel Authentic e.p.”

44 “CD Release Auf der anderen Seite.”

45 Akin mentions, for example, that Kazım Koyuncu’s “Ben Seni Sevduğumi” becomes a recurring song in the film, a leitmotiv for the soundtrack. Fatih Akın – Diary of a Film Traveler. 28:05 - 28:37.

46 See Akın’s interview on the extra features in Disc One: Akın, Auf der anderen Seite. 142 The score is used in scenes depicting places of transition in Turkey or Germany. Transition scenes, scenes with movement, transportation, searches, and travels of the characters such as Ayten’s border crossing at the German airport, Ali’s and Susanne’s border crossing in Istanbul, or the transportation of Yeter’s and Lotte’s bodies from Germany to Turkey and vice verse, are matched with particular tracks of the film score. The tracks are only brought together in one scene where the four characters Ayten and Lotte as well as Necat and Yeter are, for a brief moment, framed together in the scene. Ayten and Lotte travel in a car trying to locate Yeter. A tracking shot depicts the mute and pensive characters driving on the highway from Hamburg to Bremen. As the car moves faster, the camera tracks back and we see a train moving parallel in the opposite direction. Necat and Yeter are sitting in the train, equally mute and pensive, possibly travelling from the hospital to their apartment. This is the only time in the film that the nondiegetic sound brings several tracks of the original score together offering almost a musical climax, filling the frame aurally as we see these characters fail to cross each other’s paths as they part from the shared frame. All of these nondiegetic individual musical interludes - with titles such as “Ayten and Lotte,” “Ayten & Airport,” “Road to the Funeral,” or “Blacksea Trip” - sound contemplative and quiet. Image and sound create a meditative mood for the audience. Shantel’s original score accompanies long shots and medium-long shots of travel scenes in Hamburg, Bremen, Istanbul, and the Black Sea region. Through the contemplative nature of these recurring musical interludes, juxtaposed with the calm images of travel, the film creates a connectivity of the various scenes and local spaces. Thereby, Akın invites the viewer to aurally experience a connection between different settings and places. The music in the transition scenes in Turkey as well as in Germany accentuates similarities, although each song, that is each track of the song, is slightly different, 143 featuring a different instrument. Similarly, the local places such as the northern German cities of Hamburg and Bremen, the Turkish metropolis Istanbul with its distinct neighborhoods as well as various small villages and cities in the Black Sea region, are juxtaposed and connected through the sonic continuity within the film. Discussing film sound, Chion elaborates on temporal and spatial continuity that can be created through songs. Chion gives the example of Alfred Hitchcock’s The Birds, where the same song is used in different scenes in order to create continuity and unity of space for the viewer.47 Akın certainly makes use of this technique. Besides using motifs from the original score to connect various different settings (in different geographical spheres), Akın further underscores the continuity within The Edge of Heaven - and in many of his other feature films - through sound-bridges.48 Akın uses dialogues, voice over narration, diegetic and nondiegetic music as sound-bridges. As a favored technical device of Akın, sound-bridges add to the sensation of continuity from one shot to the other; the film thus creates the illusion of spatial unity. While the characters in The Edge of Heaven also connect the places through their movement (in trains, airplanes, cars as well as walking), the music further lures the audience into seeing these places as spaces that are in a dynamic relationship. Shantel’s original score, his transition “songs,” become a binding element in the film. Real places, filmic scenes and settings, spiritual and emotional searches of the characters as well as the characters themselves are connected through the original score. The score functions as a musical grid, which links the people and places in the film. Through musical

47 Chion, Film, A Sound Art, 168, 169.

48 In a different context Göktürk talks about sound-bridges in Akın’s Crossing the Bridge and Head-On. Göktürk, “Sound Bridges and Travelling Tunes.”; Göktürk, “Sound Bridges: Transnational Mobility as Ironic Drama.” 144 continuity, Akın and Shantel construct layers of a connected European space, reaching from northern Germany to northeastern Turkey.

Turkey

In Turkey, the diegetic music sampled mainly from Istanbul to the Black Sea region helps to construct the musical polyphony of The Edge of Heaven. While the main musical references to Turkey’s northeastern coast are music by Kazım Koyuncu in the opening sequence and Yusuf Kaba’s flute in the Black Sea travel sequence later in the film’s narrative, a melancholic song by Sezen Aksu references urban nostalgia in Istanbul. While these diegetic musical parts also display the local differences and diversity of Turkish music from the opening to the close of the filmic narrative, a variation of Bach’s “Menuet in G Minor/Polonaise in G Minor” creates another level of musical diversity, most creatively performing West European classical melodies with a banjo. The film’s narrative begins in medias res in the Black Sea area. The establishing shot of the opening sequence of The Edge of Heaven shows a long shot of a hut in a seemingly southern, rural area. Bushes, trees, and dry sand surround the hut. The colors in the outdoor scene are warm and help to create a peaceful and calm exterior. The quiet diegetic sound of a song is heard from a distance. The camera slowly pans toward a long shot of an empty gas station, which is presumably the source of the music. A car arrives at the gas pump from the opposite direction of the pan. Shortly after, Turkish expressions are exchanged: “Bayramın kutlu olsun” (Happy Holidays), “Sağolun, sizinde.” (Thank you, to you too.), “Doldurayım’mı, bakayım?” (Should I fill it up?) “Doldur” (“Fill it up.”). The next scene shows the interior of the gas station shop. The diegetic sound is now louder and the lyrics are more distinguished. The camera follows Necat (Bakı

145 Davrak), who looks for some snacks to purchase. Meanwhile, the Turkish dialogue between Necat and the vendor explains the source of the music: Necat (as well as the audience) is informed about the song and its singer.49

NECAT: Bu şarkı nedir? (What is this song?) VENDOR: Kazım Koyuncu. Hiç duymadınızmı? (Kazim Koyuncu. Haven’t you heard it before?) NECAT: Hayır. (No.) VENDOR: Burda Karadeniz’de cok tutuluyor. (Here in the Black Sea he is quite popular.) NECAT: Tanımıyorum. (I don’t know him.) VENDOR: Artvinli. Iki sene önce kanserden öldü. Çokda gençdi. Sizin yaşınızda. Hepsi Çernobil’den. Bunlar hepsi yeni yeni ortaya çıkıyor. (He is from Artvin. He died two years ago. He was so young still. He was your age. It’s all because of Chernobyl. These things are just recently coming out.)

In this scene, the ambiguous place and sound of the setting initially disorient the viewer. According to Akın, his cameraman Rainer Klausmann wanted to begin the film with this small hut. “Er meint, dass diese Bude für ihn den Süden repräsentiert. Ich mag das Antonionimäßige an der Einstellung.”50 The following camera movement and the explanatory dialogue in the second scene finally situate the film acoustically and geographically in the Turkish Black Sea region. The sequence introduces Necat (as we find out later in the films’ narrative) to the birthplace of his father and its musical and lingual specificities. The featured artist in the gas station (whose song returns at the end of the film’s narrative, when this scene is revisited) is the connecting link to the Black Sea through his local star persona, his musical instruments, and his lyrics.51 Kazım

49 The following transcript is taken from The Edge of Heaven, chapter 1, 00:00:14-00:01:53. Translations from Turkish into English are mine, unless otherwise noted.

50 My translation: “He thinks that the hut represents the south. I like the Antonioni style of the camera.” Fatih Akın - Diary of a Film Traveler. 25:56ff.

51 Göktürk discusses this scene and in particular the background of Kazim Koyuncu in her 2010 article on The Edge of Heaven. Göktürk, “Mobilität und Stillstand im Weltkino digital,” 19ff. 146 Koyuncu symbolizes the Black Sea with the region’s folkloric musical style and through his language (Laz), which is the language of an ethnic minority in Turkey. Laz is predominantly spoken in the eastern Black Sea region.52 Furthermore, the mentioning of Chernobyl, which is named as a reason for the artist’s early death, is a reference to the Soviet nuclear catastrophe in 1986 (Ukraine). Chernobyl had a major impact on the weather, agriculture, and health of the people from the Black Sea region.53 The opening sequence, thus, starts with the unfamiliar and gradually becomes familiar (especially with the blending of familiar events such as the nuclear accident in Chernobyl and its implications). Akın explains in the film’s documentary that he got to know the music of this particular artist and his short life due to Chernobyl during a pre-shooting trip to the Black Sea:

During our Black Sea trip, I fall in love with the music of Kazım Koyuncu. I was in an Internet café when his song ‘Ben Seni Sevduğumi’ was played. I asked the owner of the café who the singer was. And what followed after that was pretty much the dialog as in the beginning of the film.54

Akın states that he wanted to pay tribute to the artist, whose song “Ben Seni Sevduğumi” became the leitmotiv for the entire soundtrack of The Edge of Heaven.55 This particular

52 While Laz is a language (mainly spoken in the Eastern Black Sea region), the Turkish dialect spoken in the region is often referred to as Laz as well. The dialect includes some words of Laz.

53 Akın is indignant about the Turkish government’s reaction to Chernobyl, which did not handle the Soviet nuclear accident seriously. Until today there has been no official report on the effects and dangers of Chernobyl on Turkey’s Northeast cost. Fatih Akın - Diary of a Film Traveler. 28.42 – 29.33.

54 “Während unserer Auflösungsreise am Schwarzen Meer verliebte ich mich in die Musik von Kazım Koyuncu. Ich war gerade in einem Internet Café als sein Lied “Ben Seni Sevduğumi” (“That I love you”) lief. Ich fragte den Ladenbesitzer wer das sei. Und das, was dann folgte, war so ziemlich eins zu eins der Dialog wie am Anfang des Films.” Fatih Akın – Diary of a Film Traveler. 28:05 - 28:37.

55 Fatih Akın – Diary of a Film Traveler. 30:00 – 30:06. 147 song, which was originally written and composed by Maçkalı Hasan Tunç, is played four times in the film’s soundtrack. Twice it appears as diegetic music: In the opening of the film’s narrative in the Turkish gas station we hear Kazim Koyuncu’s interpretation and later when the scene is revisited at the end of the film’s narrative, the same song is interpreted by Şevval Sam. The original version with Maçkalı Hasan Tunç’s own interpretation is played while the final credits roll to the sights of the Black Sea in Trabzon. A long shot depicts Necat sitting at the beach, waiting for his father, his back turned to the camera and facing the sea. Ultimately, the forth version of the song is to be encountered in Shantel’s original score, which we hear in segments throughout the film’s narrative. This song and its variations function as aural experiences of contemplation and reflection throughout the film. Further references - if not a tribute - to the Black Sea region are made, for example, by Yusuf Kaba’s song “Çamburnu.” Çamburnu is the name of a town in the Black Sea region, where Akın’s grandfather was born. It is also the setting for the final scenes of The Edge of Heaven, the destination of Necat, where he hopes for reconciliation with his father. The song “Çamburnu” with its characteristic Black Sea melody played on the flute, features another typical sound of the region. It is not clear whether the sound is diegetic or nondiegetic. As Gorbman states, music enjoys a “special status in filmic narration,” it can easily cross boundaries between diegetic and nondiegetic and, thereby, “free the image from strict realism.”56 The song “Çamburnu” accompanies (almost) touristic visuals of the Black Sea, a region, which Akın describes as “something like the Garden of Eden.”57 The postcard images calmly display multiple long shots of the flute

56 Gorbman, Unheard Melodies, 2, 3.

57 Fatih Akın – Diary of a Film Traveler. 37:42ff. 148 player himself, luscious tea plantations, the folkloric costume of a tea cutter (played by “Aunt Aliye”), country roads, and old bridges, each resembling an iconic still life of the region. These slow cuts of long shots and medium-long shots of typical Black Sea images in combination with the flute sound create a contemplative aural scene. In an interview, Akın states that this film is a collection of memories and works like a photo album.58 In particular, the iconic Black Sea images in the midst of the lusciously green landscape resemble a photographic memory of the area. Next to these more folkloric and local sounds (and sights) of the Black Sea, the film also features classical musical forms in the city of Istanbul, displaying musical diversity. In a dinner setting in Istanbul during the early stages of Necat’s and Susanne’s friendship, for example, the urban setting and the aural scene recalls classic Turkish Yeşilçam films.59 In this scene, the visuals open with a bird’s eye camera angle, displaying colorful, individual Turkish dishes being placed on the dinner table (Meze). The sound accompanying the visuals of these culinary delicacies is the interpretation of the song “Ölürsem yazıktır” (“If I Die It Would Be in Vain”) by popular Turkish musician Sezen Aksu.60 (Aksu’s music is often featured in Akın’s feature films as well as in his 2005 music documentary Crossing the Bridge: The Sound of Istanbul.) While the camera changes first to a medium shot (two-shot) of the couple eating and getting acquainted, and later to a shot/reverse shot, Susanne toasts with her rakı glass (anis drink) “to death”

58 Badt, “Fatih Akin ‘The Other Site of Heaven’.”

59 Yeşilçam, named after a street in Beyoğlu, Istanbul, is a commercially oriented popular cinema that emerged in the 1950s. These films were very popular with audiences. Yeşilçam “produced cheap, low- quality films with large profit margins and were solely aimed at the star system (…).” Popular genre mixes included forms of melodrama, comedies, musicals and Revue films. Ekkehard Ellinger and Kerem Kayi, Turkish Cinema: 1970-2007 (Frankfurt am Main et al.: Peter Lang, 2008), 580, 582.

60 The Edge of Heaven, chapter 13, 01:36:14 -01:37:28. 149 (“Auf den Tod”). Thereby, the Turkish lyrics, the music, and the characteristic table settings are merged with the thematic grief, mourning, and acceptance of death in the film. Shots of rakı tables scored with a melancholic song like Aksu’s are part of a Turkish cinematic iconography of grief. The local elements of the music and food are brought into relation with two melancholic persons from Germany, one mourning the loss of her daughter, and the other his estrangement from his father. The scene becomes an audio- visual, aestheticized celebration of grief in Istanbul. Although grief is the central emotional element in this scene, the music, the colorful and vital visuals of the food, the setting, and the timid smiles of Susanne and Necat, ultimately, provide a hesitant, yet, positive, forward-looking mood in the scene. The musical choices for the scenes in Turkey are not limited to Turkish language and regional musical styles, but include, for example, classic German music as well as the voice of a muezzin, who sings a religious prayer (azan) in Arabic. The former functions as an example of a creative (film) musical excursion in the film. In the scene, Necat curiously enters a German bookstore in Istanbul, which is for sale. A handheld camera follows him as he gazes at and touches the books and walks through the dark narrow aisles full of stuffed wooden bookshelves. The diegetic music that accompanies his stroll is Bach’s “Menuet in G-Minor/Polonaise in G-Minor” arranged by US musician John Bullard. The song is from Bullard’s album Bach on the Banjo.61 Marcus the current (German) owner of the bookstore orders Turkish tea (in Turkish) for Necat and himself: “Çengiz, bize iki çay getir” (Çengiz, bring us two tea). Both characters first stand across from each other and later sit across from each other divided by a small German flag (on the table), reminiscent of Germany’s national symbolism. The camera shows the

61 John Bullard, Bach on the Banjo (Albany Records, 2006).

150 similarities of both men. Necat and Marcus are both dressed in brown jackets, have dark hair, are at a similar height and are passionate about German literature and language. In his discussion of film music in New German Cinema, Roger Hillman talks about the image/sound imbalance that is created for the audience through the implementation of preexisting (classical) songs. These classical songs, which already occupy a cultural space, create unevenness when in combination with new images, which are free of preexisting associations.62 At the same time, classical music provides for a “historical montage,” states Hillman, a “simultaneous presence of different time layers via the soundtrack.”63 Akın’s diegetic (classical) music featuring Bach references “different time layers” but it also alludes to shifts and changes in cultural productions and icons. The innovative arrangement of “Menuet in G Minor” and the banjo sound that construct the aural space for the bookstore helps to break binary constellations. J.S. Bach, a cultural icon of German Baroque music, is transformed through a “new world” musician, the US American John Bullard, and played in Turkey. The music is familiar and new at the same time. New constellations and possibilities of musical and lingual sounds are subtly introduced in this scene. The impermeability and fixture of German Leitkultur (hegemonic high culture) is subtly and almost ironically penetrated.64 Akın

62 Hillman, Unsettling Scores: German Film, Music, and Ideology, 26.

63 Ibid., 25.

64 In heated (conservative) debates about immigrant integration in Germany (especially of Turkish and/or Muslim immigrants) the term Leitkultur was used to set a standard of German hegemonic culture into which the immigrants should peacefully integrate. Please see also: Nicolas Kumanoff, “What is Leitkultur? In a Raging Debate, Leitkultur is the Operative Term,” The Atlantic Times: A Monthly Magazine from Germany, December 2004, accessed March 4, 2010, http://www.atlantic- times.com/archive_detail.php?recordID=69.

151 implements his aesthetic of heterogeneity, working subtly against a German Leitkultur by playfully beginning with a false Goethe quote by the Turkish-German professor in Hamburg65 and ending in a bookstore with much of German Leitkultur on the bookshelves exported to Istanbul and surrounded by an Americanized Bach. Juxtaposed to the new sound of Bach is the sound of an Arabic prayer in Istanbul. The Islamic song invites Muslim men to the mosque.66 The visuals of various mosques and minarets paired with the sound of religious prayer in Arabic connect two different scenes: The first scene depicts Ayten in her prison room looking into the sky (which cuts to the images of the mosque), and the second scene shows Susanne and, later, Necat looking down from the window of their apartment, greeting each other in German and talking about the men going to morning prayer.67 The figures of German mother, Turkish-German son and Turkish daughter are linked through the sounds of Arabic prayer and the visuals of Muslim men going to the mosque.68 The sound of the Arabic prayer as well as the cross-cut of chatting men going to the mosque are not displayed as foreign or alien, but as a peaceful act of religious piousness. The calm dialogue between Necat and Susanne in soft-spoken German, which follows the Imam’s voice, underscores the unthreatening sounds and sights of Islam in

65 Mennel references Roger Hillman in a footnote, who states that the Goethe citations in the film are fiction. Mennel, “Überkreuzungen in globaler Zeit und globalem Raum in Fatih Akıns “Auf der anderen Seite,” 106.

66 A muezzin sings five times a day an Arabic prayer from the minarets and calls Muslim men to come to the mosque for prayer.

67 Susanne greets Necat by saying “Guten Morgen” (Good morning). The Edge of Heaven, chapter 14, 01:39:50 ff.

68 Ezli even recognizes church towers next to minarets in this scene. Ezli, “Von Lücken, Grenzen und Räumen: Übersetzungsverhältnisse in Alejandro Gonzáles Iñarritus ‘Babel’ und Fatih Akıns ‘Auf der anderen Seite’,” 85.

152 this sequence. Explaining the religious holiday, Necat starts talking about the religious story of Ibrahim and his son, which Susanne knows already: “Diese Geschichte gibt’s bei uns auch” (We have that story as well).69 Yet this religious story does not serve as a helping hand to create a “dialogue” between “different cultures;” in fact, that kind of dialogue is rejected. Instead, the possible reconciliation between Necat and his father is initiated through the story of Ibrahim.70 These sounds (German and Arabic) and sights (diverse women and men, mosques, minarets, church towers, and local neighborhoods in Istanbul) are not isolated, but exist simultaneously and are in exchange. Arabic prayers and J.S. Bach on a banjo do not have to be mutually exclusive but can be part of the same, overlapping space.

Germany

The few songs that are featured in the musical soundtrack in Germany are selected from a wide array of musical genres. These range from German marching bands to classic Turkish film music to Shantel’s remixes of a Romanian song. Ultimately, the music is polyphonic, as in other sequences, and suggests a dynamic relationship between varieties of musical styles. The function of these musical mixtures and complex sounds is twofold: On the one hand, they help to create a connected European soundscape, and, on the other hand, they give insights into the diverse filmic characters who actively listen to and are often closely identified with the music, which often sets the mood for the scenes.

69 The Edge of Heaven, chapter 14, 01:40:33.

70 For a brilliantly clarifying discussion about the rejection of a culturalist “dialogue of cultures” in this scene please see: Ezli, “Von Lücken, Grenzen und Räumen: Übersetzungsverhältnisse in Alejandro Gonzáles Iñarritus ‘Babel’ und Fatih Akıns ‘Auf der anderen Seite’,” 82; Tezcan, “Der Tod Diesseits von Kultur- Wie Fatih Akın den Großen Kulturdialog umgeht,” 63ff.

153 After the opening sequence in the Black Sea region in Turkey, which displays an initially ambiguous setting and music, the film cuts to Germany. The ambiguity of the previous scene is juxtaposed with the very precise and clear opening of the sequence in Bremen (e.g. close-ups of Bremer Stadtmusikanten). In contrast to the long shots, slow camera movements, and quiet musical soundtrack of the opening sequence, this sequence displays fast cut images of a May First demonstration in Bremen.71 The visuals of street demonstrators are accompanied by the diegetic sound of the marching bands (Spielmannzug), a typical German tradition for street festivities. The medium long shot and sound of the marching band sets the mood for Ali’s adventures (Tuncel Kurtiz). Ali is a happily smiling man in his 60s approaching the camera. Ali moves in the opposite direction from the marching band and demonstrators. Once the elderly man is in focus, the film cuts to the infamous Helenenstrasse (a red light district), into which he has turned.72 The scene is now silent and city noise is absent. The only sound featured is of

71 Akın states that in his films his Turkish scenes could be seen as more specific and carefully chosen when compared to his German scenes, which might seem more arbitrary or exchangeable. He explains this with the fact that he lives in Germany and might not have enough distance to the places. Whereas Turkey still offers new territories for the director, where there might be something to discover or understand. I believe the director does not portray arbitrary German settings. These are also depicted as specific and local as can be seen in the Bremen sequence above. For more details please see: Fatih Akın –Documentary of a Film Traveler. 26:40 – 26:58.

72 The Helenenstrasse is a red light district in Bremen, where predominantly prostitutes have their houses and apartments for sex work. It is a district, which started as early as the 19th century as a city-controlled sex work street (with a short period of prohibition). It has been in use again since 1934 (reopened under the Nazi party). The women work on their own. Akın states in an interview that he discovered the Helenenstrasse on a promotion visit for his film Crossing the Bridge. The Helenenstrasse is across the movie theater where he had his premier in 2005. Akin says that he was fascinated by the colors of the small houses as well as by the age of the prostitutes, who generally were over 40 years of age. Fatih Akın – Diary of a Film Traveler. 31:30 - 32:32.

154 the man walking by the prostitutes’ colorful, small Gründerzeit (founding years) houses.73 Yeter/Jessy (Nursel Köşe), the prostitute Ali chooses to spend his time with, invites him into her house. Yeter is in her forties and dressed in a red and black latex outfit.74 The static camera shows two rooms that are connected. The furniture, faucet, refrigerator, and other items are placed against the walls of the square room. The arrangement of the room and the framing of the characters resemble a particular scene in Fassbinder’s 1974 film Ali: Fear Eats the Soul. The scene in Ali: Fear Eats the Soul depicts Fassbinder’s Ali (El Hedi ben Salem) in the apartment of his sex interest Barbara (Barbara Valentin). Ali is naked and framed in by the door that connects the two rooms in the apartment. The colors of Yeter’s apartment are rendered in red and yellow, creating a conventional erotic atmosphere. Once Akın’s Ali enters Yeter’s place, she turns on the music. The music replaces the previous sound of the German marching band in downtown Bremen. It is the voice of a Turkish pop star who is often featured in the Yeşilcam films of the 1970s: Neşe Karaböcek. The Turkish sex worker Yeter plays Karaböcek’s 1972 interpretation of “Son Hatıra” (“Last Memory”) from a cassette recorder.75 The sound of the antiquated cassette recorder as well as the song itself creates an aural experience of exile as well as musical

73 The Gründerzeit refers to the second half of the 19th century (a period of economic boom in Germany and ).

74 Akın said that Nursel Köşe has the faith of many Turkish actresses over 40 in Germany; they are left to play the “Kopftuch-Mutti” (headscarf moms). Yet, she is too “sexy” to do that. He states about Köşe: “Ich halte sie für eine große Schauspielerin, die mich in ihrer Präsenz an die Diven des italienischen Kinos der 50er und 60er Jahre erinnert.” (I think she is a great actress, whose presence reminds me of the divas of Italian cinema of the 1950s and 60s.) For more details see: Fatih Akın – Diary of a Film Traveler. 00:14:24 – 00:14: 46.

75 The Edge of Heaven, chapter 1; 00:03:37.

155 nostalgia between the two protagonists (Yeter and Ali), who represent the first generation of guest workers or political migrants who left Turkey many decades ago.76 The song further establishes a connection to Turkish cinema history. The actor playing Ali (Tuncel Kurtiz) was a famous actor in the 1960s and 70s in Turkey, especially in films by acclaimed Turkish director Yılmaz Güney.77 Kurtiz played, for example, in Güney’s 1970 film Umut (Hope), which initiated the more artistically and politically motivated “Young Turkish Cinema.”78 The character of Yeter also represents a connection to Turkish cinema. As Akın states about his film,

The aging prostitute is a beloved figure in Turkish cinema. However, she is always romanticized. … the figure of Yeter is also my personal view of Turkish cinema. I like the figure, but not the realization of it. I am missing some more realism, some more dirt. A little less mainstream. For me Nursel plays it [the figure] perfectly.79

76 Yeter’s husband was killed in 1978 in Maraş. He was possibly a political activist. She talks about this incident during her first evening at Ali Aksu’s house (The Edge of Heaven, chapter 3, 00:16:06). The audience can infer that Yeter left the country due to political and economic reasons, after the death of her husband. Akın references this political active time in an interview about The Edge of Heaven, and hopes that through his films he might provoke political consciousness in his audiences: “There is also a political thrust. In the 80s, a lot of left wing people came to Germany, but the problem we have in Germany is that young people today are less interested in changing anything. Young people are really not interested in society nor do they feel responsible for their society. My film is to provoke people to feel responsible for other humans.” Badt, “Fatih Akin ‘The Other Site of Heaven’.”

77 Yilmaz Güney started with commercial films and was linked to Yeşilçam in his earlier acting career. Only in 1968 he started his own production company Güney Filimcilik (Güney production) and moved toward a less commercially driven filmmaking. Beginning with his 1970 film Umut (Hope), Güney became the creator of a “New” and “Young Turkish Cinema.” Ellinger and Kayi, Turkish Cinema: 1970-2007, 598, 599.

78 Ibid., 598.

79 “Die alternde Hure ist eine beliebte Figur des türkischen Kinos. Allerdings wird sie immer total verklärt und romantisiert. Somit ist die Figur der Yeter auch mein persönlicher Blick auf das türkische Kino. Ich mag die Figuren, doch nicht die Umsetzung. Was mir fehlt ist ein Stück mehr Realismus, ein Stück mehr Dreck. Ein Stück weniger Mainstream. Für mich hat Nursel das perfekt dargestellt.” Fatih Akın – Diary of a Film Traveler. 33:14 – 33: 35.

156 Fitting the nostalgic atmosphere of the two Turkish expatriates, Karaböcek’s song helps to underscore the melancholy feeling in the prostitute’s work environment in Bremen. The song features as a connecting element between the two protagonists. Jessy/ Yeter is revealed to be of Turkish origin. Ali and Yeter briefly discuss her name and origin before they begin their sexual encounter. The music serves to create a transitory nostalgic home for the two expatriates. The increasing familiarity between the two characters, which is initiated through Karaböcek’s song, is further emphasized through the shifts in the names that Ali uses to address Yeter: from Jessy, an English name, to Yeter (enough), her Turkish birth name, to Gülüm (my rose), a name of affection in Turkish. However, paradoxically, this nostalgic “Turkish” refuge does not feature a romantic, uncontested, or “Islamic” surrounding, but, in a very matter-of-fact style, the house of a Turkish sex worker in northern Germany. Akın constructs new images for his Turkish-German figures. This particular, innovative, and complex staging of two first- generation migrants creates productive tensions. First, Akın’s scene alludes to the low- budget and less artistic Yeşilçam cinema through the music of Karaböcek. Second, the film alludes to the figure of the aging prostitute of Turkish cinema, whom Akın strips of its romanticized veil and transforms into an edgier figure.80 Third, the film opposes the stereotypical portrayals of first generation Turkish-German migrants as miserable and sympathetic characters in German film of the 1970s and 80s by showing the self- confident characters of Ali and Yeter. Although Yeter is a prostitute and is eventually

80 This transformation is also verbally hinted at in the introductory sequence between Necat and Yeter. Yeter explains Necat that she is a prostitute. She uses the word “Hayat kadını” (lit. woman of life), which is a Turkish euphemism for prostitute, also commonly used in Turkish films. Since Necat does not understand the meaning of the word, she has to be more precise: “Bildiğın orospu işte” (A whore as you know it.). The Edge of Heaven, chapter 3, 00:17:43 – 00:17:53.

157 killed, the self-employed and independent prostitute does not resemble Sanders-Brahms’ shy Shirin of the 1970s, who came to Germany as a guest worker, was raped, forced into prostitution, and, finally, killed by her procurer.81 Akın, thereby, creates a completely new and complex audio-visual display of two first-generation Turkish-Germans. Featuring a younger urban generation, the next musical example I will discuss is the disco scene of Ayten and Lotte in Hamburg. This sequence features both an aural and visual experience of a cosmopolitan urban space as well as a blossoming emotional relationship between Ayten and Lotte.82 It is a multiethnic, multimusical sequence portraying Hamburg as a city with a vibrant nightlife. After a brief conversation between Susanne and Lotte (with no music), the next scene cuts to the interior of a dance club in Hamburg. The scene is rendered in yellow and orange (similar to the sex-work apartment of Yeter) and provides a sensual atmosphere. People are dancing, drinking, and smoking while the DJ (Shantel) is providing the music. The sequence starts with a cut-in, with a close-up of the DJ’s arm and moves up to his face and headphones. The next cut shows a long shot of the dance floor, displaying people dancing in slow motion. Next, we see a sensual close-up of Lotte’s and Ayten’s face, hair, and lips while they are dancing, smoking, and drinking beer. All shots are in slow motion. The following cut shows Ayten and Lotte sitting in the center back of the frame, with many club visitors sitting and chatting around them. The camera moves into the center, zooms in to a two-shot of Ayten and Lotte, who have multiple empty shot glasses in front of them. At the time Ayten and Lotte start to look at each other sensually and start kissing passionately, the visuals are in

81 In Helma Sanders-Brahms’ 1976 Shirins Hochzeit, the female protagonist Shirin (Ayten Erten) is a Turkish guest worker who becomes a prostitute. Thereby, it could be argued that The Edge of Heaven is also in dialogue with a Turkish-German film from the 1970s. However, Shirin is a shy and sympathetic character, who does not have the same self-confidence as her filmic sibling Yeter.

82 The Edge of Heaven, chapter 8; 00:53:42-00:55:16. 158 real time. The camera then shows close-ups of Ayten and Lotte. The music is in real time at all times during the disco sequence. The music, which brings the protagonists emotionally and physically closer, could be diegetic or nondiegetic. This ambiguity is the result of the discrepancy between real time (of music) and slow motion (of camera). For the viewer, this sequence is highlighted as important through its camerawork and sound. The featured song is the “Inel Inel de Aur – Bucovina Club” dance hall mix by Shantel and DJ Click. The Romanian love song is a remix of the French DJ Click and the German-Romanian singer Rona Hartner (who also has a Greek and Hungarian background). The song, the singer as well as the filmic characters Ayten and Lotte, share a connection through the theme of movement and travel in the lyrics. The Romanian song lyrics are about a lover who travels from far away to come see his beloved. The lyrical I is poor, he cannot afford the “Golden ring,” and, therefore, will never be allowed to marry his love interest. Nevertheless, he praises her beauty and travels long distances to see her. The song “Inel Inel de Aur” (“Ring oh Golden Ring”) describes this love affair and compares the lady’s beauty to the city of Bucharest.83 In the film, Ayten and Lotte are in constant movement. The song also foreshadows the travels of Lotte to Istanbul to see and help her love interest Ayten. Rona Hartner is a Romanian actress and singer whose life is also marked by travel. She moved from Romania to Paris in the late 1990s. Her collaboration with DJ Click began her musical career, which has emphasized movement and migration thematically in her work. The music is characterized by the fusion of “gypsy” and electronic music: “électro tzigane” (electro gypsy). DJ Click “proposes her to focus exclusively on a fusion between

83 In an email exchange the musician translated the Romanian song lyrics into English and also commented on the content of the song. Rona Hartner, “Dissertation (Research) Question about your song ‘Inel Inel de Aur - Bucovina Dub,’” July 26, 2010.

159 electronic music and gypsy music.”84 Surely, this music and the singer’s background accentuate popular connotations of nomadic migration with a romanticized idea of a “gypsy” lifestyle. Hartner has become a symbol of “gypsy” and Balkan music. Hartner’s 2007 Album continues the musical fusions and ideas of migration and movement that the musician herself represents. “Nationalité Vagabonde” is a “fusion of electro gypsy music” and “Afro Jazz accents” (“véritable fusion électro tzigane aux accents afro jazz, arrangé par Jérémy Demaesmaker et Mike Aube”).85 Ultimately, Akın’s aesthetics of heterogeneity are revealed in the selection of artists, actors, and songs. The songs come from diverse backgrounds, are themselves combined and fused with other sounds, and accompany the visuals of diverse characters, in this case of Ayten and Lotte. A Turkish human rights activist and a German student of languages fall in love in Hamburg dancing to a song, which merges variations of Balkan, Gypsy, French, and German musical contexts, among others. This scene clearly demonstrates the networks within the European music industry as well as between musical artists. The musical art forms of sampling, remixing, and dubbing as well as the Romanian lyrics become symbols of the permeability of musical and lingual borders. This musical heterogeneity and permeability could be seen as personified in the sensual, physical encounter between Ayten and Lotte. Ultimately, the musical insights of Akın, the dub and sampling of Shantel, and the individual musical choices they make display the porous and fluid characteristic of the European soundtrack in The Edge of Heaven. The songs they use are from different and

84 (DJ Click “propose de s’orienter vers une fusion exclusivement électro tzigane.”) Stéphanie Griguer, “Rona Hartner bio,” Le site officiel de Rona Hartner, 2009, http://ronahartner.com/contactpro/attachment/rona-hartner-bio/.

85 Ibid. 160 in itself locally influenced music from Turkish, German, French, and Romanian contexts. The music in the film is diversified and still linked through the score artist Shantel and his dub and sampling. The individual songs do not exist side by side in isolation, but are in direct exchange and share a relationship as the versions of songs such as Rona Hartner’s “Inel Inel de Aur” exemplify. Generally, the individual musical elements in The Edge of Heaven are not alien, exotic, or foreign, but smoothly integrated into the general soundtrack of the film and its narrative. The music becomes an integral part of the Europe displayed. Turkish commodities such as a cassette of Neşe Karaböçek, the music of Sezen Aksu, or Shantel’s remixes of a Romanian song become a familiar aspect of the sounds in Western Europe, as they feature in private and public spheres in the film.

THE SOUND OF LANGUAGES IN THE EDGE OF HEAVEN

Europe’s sound is a multitude of music, languages, lyrics, and other sounds. This diegetic polyphony is particularly reflected in the sound of languages in Akın’s films.86 In The Edge of Heaven, diverse characters in geographically different settings speak numerous languages, dialects, and accents. The speakers travel and move with their languages and through their voices create a connection between the spaces. German and Turkish dialects and accents are heard in Istanbul and the Black Sea region as well as in Hamburg and Bremen. As the musical soundtrack, the dialogues also create connectivity; the voices cross borders and create a diverse aural space of Europe.

86 In a different context, talking about parallelism and transnational aesthetics in Akın’s The Edge of Heaven, Mennel also mentions the various accents and the multilingualism in the film. Please see Mennel, “Überkreuzungen in globaler Zeit und globalem Raum in Fatih Akıns “Auf der anderen Seite,” 98, 114.

161 Ali Aksu and Yeter Öztürk, for example, two representatives of the first generation of guest workers in Germany, speak Turkish as their first language. Both characters have Turkish accents speaking to each other in German in the Helenenstrasse (Bremen). The following dialogue is entirely in German; however, the accents of both characters indicate their Turkish background.87

YETER: Nah? (Hello?) ALI: Guten Tag. (Good afternoon.) YETER: Halbe Stunde 50 Euro. (Half an hour 50 Euros.) ALI: Wie heisst du? (What is your name?) YETER: Jessy. ALI: Jessy, machst du Französisch auch? (Jessy, do you also do French?) YETER: Französisch, Italienisch, Griechisch, für dich mach ich international. (French, Greek, Italian, for you, I will do it internationally.) ALI: Bravo, bravo.

Once the mutual Turkish background is established, Ali and Yeter switch to Turkish. It is now their regional Turkish dialects that distinguish their language, thus giving a more diversified sound to their Turkish. With this nuanced differentiation, Turkish is acoustically shown not to be the same for every speaker. Similarly, Necat, Susanne, Lotte, and the law enforcement professionals in the film all speak their own dialects and sociolects of German. Their German is also differentiated. When they speak other languages, their accents are made audible. For example, when Necat speaks Turkish, or when Lotte and Susanne speak English, these characters carry over a variation of their German accents into the other language (in Germany as well as in Turkey). Similarly, the German bookkeeper in Istanbul has a German accent when he speaks Turkish, or utters Turkish phrases in Turkey. Therefore, it

87 The following dialogue is the first interaction between Jessy and Ali at the Helenenstrasse. The Edge of Heaven, chapter 2, 00:02:53 – 00:03:36.

162 is not only Turkish or Turkish-German characters who have accents, but all characters, depending on which languages they speak.88 With the accentual diversity in German as well as in Turkish regions, the diversified sounds of languages and accents exist in different geographical places. They appear in both places and help create a similar aural space: Istanbul, the Black Sea region, and Hamburg represent aurally similar spaces. As suggested above, the differences are not solely displayed in accents, but also in dialects. While Mennel reads dialects as locally specific and immobile as opposed to the multiplicities of accents, I read the dialects in Akın’s film to be equally mobile and multiple as the accents. Dialects grant regional differences within languages. I will use Ali Aksu’s language use as an example. Ali’s actual language of communication is not only marked by a Turkish accent (when speaking German) but also by a specific regional Turkish dialect. In Turkish, he asks his son: “Eh, sen şimdi kimi dizisin? Kimi bum bum edisin” (colloquial for: With whom are you sleeping at the moment).89 Ali’s use of “edisin” instead of the standard Turkish verb conjugation “ediyorsun,” refers to a very specific regional dialect of the Black Sea region. Ali uses signifiers of this dialect in both Turkish and German. For example, often he adds, “da” to the end of the sentences in German as well as Turkish. Talking to his son, he says: “Ich trinke gar nicht so viel, da” (“I don’t drink that much, da.”).90 “Da” has no specific semantic implications, other than the reference to this particular dialect. Later in the film, we see Ali’s nephew (Erkan Can)

88 Many films portraying Turkish-German characters have focused on the differentiation of the migrants or “foreigners” (from the native population) by accentuating their foreign accents. In Akın’s films, the viewer and listener is presented with a democratization of languages, accents, and dialects. All characters speak “different,” and, therefore, the migrants and “foreigners” are not singled out.

89 The Edge of Heaven, chapter 2, 00:08:36.

90 The Edge of Heaven, chapter 3, 00:16:50.

163 who is typecast for his role.91 He represents the large community of Black Sea migrants, who migrated from the Black Sea to Istanbul in the course of the 20th century. Thus, the film portrays the travel of a certain dialect to the city of Istanbul, as well as to Bremen, a northern German port city where it is also implemented into the German language through Ali Aksu’s language use. The local Black Sea dialect infuses itself not only into a new neighborhood within the same language (in Istanbul, Turkey) but also in a different country and language (in Bremen, Germany). Therefore, Ali’s language use not only allows for a diversified depiction of the sound of Turkish through a particular dialect, but it is also shown as a language which is in direct exchange with another language. The Black Sea dialect merges with German. Thus languages are subtly displayed as permeable, flexible, and in constant change. To be sure, these minute differences might not be audible to all audiences, particularly not to those who are not familiar with Turkish or German. These language differences might also be a result of Akın’s “love for reality” in his films, which is also reflected in Akın’s international cast and their use of languages.92 Yet, these lingual differences are important in terms of making a democratized, accented way of life in a globalized world audible. People are not characterized as “others” simply by their use of languages. While following the dramatic narrative of the film, these diversified sounds, very subtly, allow for an aural experience of a multiethnic and multilingual contemporary Europe.

91 Erkan Can is known to Turkish audiences as Temel, a Black Sea character he played in the TV series Mahallenin Muhtarlari. In this show, which takes place in Istanbul, Can plays a Black Sea character, who speaks in the dialect of the region. The popular show ran from 1992 to 2002. “Mahallenin Muhtarlari 1992,” IMDB The Internet Movie Database, accessed July 26, 2010, http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0299348/.

92 Gesell talks about Akın’s Realitätsnähe (realistic depictions) in his films. Gesell, “Ein gnadenloser Romantiker.”

164 Ultimately, through the varied sounds of languages, the film refrains from othering a particular character through his/her language, dialect, or accent.93 Rather, the diversified sound among and across languages becomes a common factor among the speakers. To have an accent becomes the norm. The sound of Europe becomes diversified, in Germany as well as in Turkey. This sonic diversity is opposed to Naficy’s monopoly of “accents” of economic or political migrants in the film.94 Consequently, it displays two things: first, the diversity of European sounds, including the sounds that Akın grew up with in northern Germany, Istanbul, and the Black Sea region. Second, the variations of languages, the existence of a diversity of sounds in northern Germany and Turkey today also display an experience of a similar aural space in geographically separate regions.

CONCLUSION

This polyphonic European sound is not merely a vibrant soundtrack to Akın’s films in general, and to The Edge of Heaven, in particular, but it features as a sonic dimension in the construction of a diverse and multiethnic European space. The changing sights and sounds of Europe, which become a part of Akın’s cinematic visions of Europe,

93 Furthermore, by having subtitles for all spoken languages used in the film, most of the viewers have to read different sections of the film. Thereby, the democratization of the languages extends to the audiences. Everybody, at some point, might have to read the subtitles. Even if a Turkish-German with knowledge of English might understand all of the three main languages in the film, he or she might be unaware of Griko/Greek or another language featured in the soundtrack of the film. Thus, ignorance of a language does not need to bring feelings of fear or “otherness,” but can be part of an aural experience of Europe with its multiple language and dialects.

94 I read accents in dialogues to be an integral factor in the (aural) aesthetics of “accented” cinema. However, for Mennel, “accent” in Naficy’s work does not refer to actual dialogs in the film, but rather to a general aesthetics in “accented” films, Mennel, “Überkreuzungen in globaler Zeit und globalem Raum in Fatih Akıns “Auf der anderen Seite,” 98.

165 have not been accepted in all European realities. The minaret ban in Switzerland, the critical discussion in northern Germany about the sound of muezzins as well as the visual ban of an orthodox Islam (through the recent ban of the full-face hijab in and France) stand in opposition to the aestheticized sounds and sights in Akın’s films.95 Akın offers sights of veiled as well as nude women (and men), and sounds of Western European dance floor hits with southern Italian and Balkan influences as well as Turkish pop songs and Arabic prayers. In his cinematic Europe, heterogeneity and polyphony are the norm and the desirable, not the essentialist and the one-sided. That Akın stands for a tolerant and open-minded Europe has been most recently exemplified through his reaction to the Swiss ban of minaret buildings in Switzerland. As a child of Muslim parents, for whom minarets represent an “architectural completeness” of the religious buildings, and not a politicized and radicalized Islam, Akın states that he was personally offended by the ban. Frustrated with the xenophobic referendum, Akın cancelled his scheduled Soul Kitchen premiere appearance in Switzerland in December 2009.96

95 For exemplary news coverage of hijab or minaret bans, please see: Dominic Hughes, “Belgium Edges Closer to Veil Ban,” BBC (BBC news, Brussels, April 22, 2010), sec. Europe, accessed July 21, 2010, http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/8636039.stm; Daniel Wiese, “Angst vor dem Muezzin,” taz.de, October 8, 2009, accessed July 21, 2010, http://www.taz.de/1/nord/artikel/1/angst-vor-dem-muezzin/; “French Scarf Ban Comes into Force,” BBC, September 2, 2004, sec. Europe, accessed July 21, 2010, http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/3619988.stm; “French MPs Vote to Ban Full Veil,” BBC, July 13, 2010, sec. Europe, accessed July 21, 2010, http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/10611398; Ian Traynor, “Sarkozy Defends Switzerland Minaret Ban,” guardian.co.uk, December 8, 2009, accessed July 21, 2010, http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/dec/08/sarkozy-sympathises-minaret-ban-switzerland.

96 “Offener Brief: Fatih Akin boykottiert Filmpremiere in der Schweiz | MiGAZIN,” MIGAZIN: Migration in Germany, December 4, 2009, accessed December 7, 2009, http://www.migazin.de/2009/12/04/fatih- akin-boykottiert-filmpremiere-in-der-schweiz/. “(…) Dieser Volksentscheid widerspricht meinem Verständnis von Humanismus, Toleranz und dem Glauben daran, dass ein harmonisches Miteinander von Menschen unterschiedlicher Herkunft, Rasse und Religion möglich sein muss. Da ich Kind moslemischer Eltern bin, die in Minaretten keinen politischen Islam, sondern lediglich die vollständige Architektur ihrer Gotteshäuser sehen, fühle ich mich durch den Volksentscheid auch persönlich betroffen. (…). Ich kann mir das Votum der Schweizer gegen den Minarettenbau nur mit Angst erklären. Angst ist die Quelle allen Übels. ‘Angst essen Seele auf’ heißt ein Film von Rainer Werner Fassbinder. Vielleicht hat die Angst in der Schweiz schon zu viele Seelen aufgegessen.” (“This referendum is against my understanding of humanism, tolerance, and the belief that a harmonious coexistence among people of different background, race, and 166 Despite, or maybe because of, a focus on more problematic portrayals of immigrants and, particularly, Muslims, in public and political discourse in the last few decades, Akın does not shy away from his heterogeneous, yet ultimately harmonizing depiction of Europe. His visions have earned him more than 20 awards for The Edge of Heaven in Italy, Spain, Turkey, Germany, and from the European Parliament, just to mention a few. Journalists have named him the most “European German director” and he is praised as a talented auteur with a unique style in international film festivals.97 Akın believes in a unified space of Europe, in which the people matter more than political or social guidelines. He foregrounds the unifying links among his characters without overgeneralizing or focusing on cultural stereotypes. Akın harvests his personal experiences of musical and lingual sounds from Hamburg, Istanbul, and the Black Sea region, but he also uses other influential areas from his DJ experiences (such as reggae and soul). While thematically including complicated issues such as deportation, emotional estrangement between parent and child, and manslaughter, the film nevertheless believes in its unifying and soothing ability (for its protagonists). Akın stresses that he generally does not have a message of “tolerance” in his films, but that he simply depicts “his reality” - his experiences and life in Germany, Turkey, and other places in the world with multiethnic citizens.98 He stresses that he is a

religion must be possible. Since I am a child of Moslem parents, who do not see a political Islam in minarets, but a completeness of the architecture of their religious buildings, I feel personally offended by the referendum. (…) My only rationale for the Swiss referendum is fear. Fear is the source for all evil. ‘Fear Eats the Soul’ is the title of a film by Rainer Werner Fassbinder. Maybe fear has eaten too many souls in Switzerland already.”)

97 “48 FIC XiXÓn: Festival International de Cine de Gijón 19 - 28 Noviembre de 2009.”; “Fatih Akin: ‘El cine y la cocina tienen muchos elementos en común’.”; “Akin, Fatih.”

98 In Madrid, in an interview related to his film Soul Kitchen, Akın talks about “multiculturalism” in his films and stresses that for him the depiction of multiethnicity is something “automatic” and self-evident. It is part of his “reality.” (“Para mí es algo automático. La multiculturalidad es algo tan normal para mí que 167 citizen of the world.99 He does not want to be squeezed into a niche of filmmakers with very narrow political agendas about ethnicity. Yet, The Edge of Heaven does not hide its reliance on an optimistic outlook on the people of Europe. Filmic characters with diverse backgrounds fight, mourn, and love across borders. The diversified sound, which is the focus in this chapter, is one of the devices that Akın employs to create connectivity and continuity among the people, places, and entities in Europe. The musical and lingual diversity complements the diverse settings, cast, and characters in his films that, ultimately, emphasize Akın’s aesthetics of heterogeneity. These aesthetics are “normal” for him; they are a part of his “reality.” He does not want to transform this multiethnic normalcy into a “message of tolerance,” but wants it to be accepted as a given, as a grid for European stories.100 In the backdrop of this multiethnic Europe, Akın unravels his stories about love and reconciliation in The Edge of Heaven.

no pongo peso en ella. No hay mensaje, no estoy hablando de tolerancia. Estoy hablando de mi realidad.”) “Fatih Akin: ‘Me estaba oscureciendo a mí mismo con tanta tragedia’.”

99 Badt, “Fatih Akin ‘The Other Site of Heaven’.”

100 “Fatih Akin: ‘Me estaba oscureciendo a mí mismo con tanta tragedia’.” 168 Conclusion

This dissertation has traced the aesthetic and thematic arrangements in Fatih Akın’s cinema in a European context. Akın’s cinema has often been analyzed as part of a Turkish-German or minority cinema. Thereby, his films have been frequently read as reflecting or engaging with the lifestyles and experiences of second-generation Turkish- Germans in Germany. While I believe that these social-realist or ethnographic readings are justified and relevant, I also believe that we need to acknowledge other filmic components of the films, freeing Akın’s cinema from a purely representational reading of minority identities in Germany. In the course of my dissertation work, this type of innovative scholarship has slowly begun. By looking at three feature films, this dissertation has shed light on Akın’s filmic visions of Europe. The scrutiny of the particular arrangement of formal elements such as narrative, mise-en-scène, and sound in Akın’s films, has helped to foreground what I call “aesthetics of heterogeneity” in his films - a productive and creative interplay of diverse sights and sounds on various filmic levels, including film music, dialogue, setting, and casting. These aesthetics emerge as crucial in constructing Akın’s diverse filmic Europe. Although most of the filmic settings are located in northern Germany and Turkey, I have argued that Akın’s films allude to an all-encompassing vision of Europe. Thus, in my analyses, I have treated Germany as a pars pro toto for contemporary Europe itself. Particularly considering the history of postwar (im)migration, Germany’s cities represent European postmodern, urban diversity like cities in England, France, and the Netherlands. Most importantly, this study has accounted for two things: First, Akın’s cinema projects images of a diverse, multiethnic, and polyphonic Europe. This aural and visual

169 diversity has become a major aesthetic component in Akın’s films. Second, the study has illustrated how Akın’s cinema challenges existing notions of a purely cosmopolitan “New Europe” and a xenophobic “Fortress Europe.” These challenges are achieved by juxtaposing images of a dynamic, mobile, and traversable Europe with ones of an impermeable Europe, in which (predominantly West European) countries experience illegal migration and conduct deportations of unwanted migrants. While the hardships of non-EU migrants are referenced or alluded to, the general focus of Akın’s oeuvre is on Europe’s quotidian, dynamic diversity, predominantly emphasized through the films’ mise-en-scène, soundtrack, characters, and narrative. Akın’s aesthetics of heterogeneity are informed by a vigorous interplay of diverse visual and aural elements, which I granted special attention to in the three chapters of this project. While the first chapter has provided a general overview of the spatial constructions of Europe (which includes aural and visual spaces of Europe), the next two chapters have offered close-up inquiries into filmic elements such as dialogue and sound, providing further cultural readings of the formal categories. The discussions in the three chapters have emphasized that Akın’s filmic versions of Europe come into existence through connections and interrelations: the multiple relations and interrelations of visual and aural elements in the film, emphasized particularly through mise-en-scène and soundtrack, connote and establish a dynamic interplay between the local and the global. Akın’s cultural European space thus emerges as a shifting entity in flux. The first chapter has introduced the general spatial conceptualization of Europe in In July. This light-hearted, early film already established the spatial, aural, and visual components of Akın’s filmic Europe, which the director revisited later in his critically acclaimed films Head-On and The Edge of Heaven. The discussions have shown that the 170 existing (real) national borders become the antagonists to the open space of Europe. These borders are depicted as arbitrary and become, in fact, superfluous when juxtaposed with the wishes and desires of the traveler-protagonists to move freely across open, connected space. Landscapes, predominantly in Central and Eastern Europe, come to symbolize precisely this continuous and connected space of Europe. These connections are particularly interesting considering the discourses of difference that have dominated the perception of an economically, politically, and culturally divided East/West and North/South during and shortly after the Cold War. The continuity of space is achieved through the use of the road movie genre, depicting travels from Hamburg to Budapest to Istanbul, and through the references to postmodern, contemporary loci amoeni in Romania and on the Danube. The mise-en-scène often depicts wide horizons, and open landscapes as typical for road movies, and thereby creates the impression of a connected landscape. Simultaneously, these landscapes in Central and Eastern Europe turn into a large, ironic, romantic locus amoenus, which also include sights of rusty ships and run- down gas stops. Thereby, these contemporary “lovely places” in Eastern Europe open up and rejuvenate the antiquated ideas of European loci amoeni from love poetry. At the same time, the visuals of landscapes are juxtaposed with vibrant, cosmopolitan urban cityscapes throughout Europe (from northwestern to southeastern Europe). Hamburg, Budapest, and Istanbul become connected through their diverse, cosmopolitan, and polyphonic cityscapes. These sights are accompanied with the sounds of musical mixtures from Hamburg, Istanbul, and Brooklyn as well as with a variety of Western and Eastern European languages, which highlight the sonic heterogeneity of Europe in In July. Ultimately, the European space that the travelers experience and indirectly promote, becomes a space which comes to symbolize tolerant, cosmopolitan, and diverse Europe, which extends, culturally, well into southeastern Europe and beyond, 171 despite national borders, corrupt guards thereof, and strict visa restrictions that apply to non-EU citizens. After establishing the general heterogeneous sights and sounds of Europe in the In July chapter, the second chapter has provided a close-up of the (multilingual) dialogues in Head-On, paying particular close attention to the themes of migration and immigration. Both multilingualism and immigration are current themes in Europe. Looking at multilingualism in the film, this chapter has focused on establishing the links that exist between language and belonging, language and identification, and language and cosmopolitanism. Several close readings of dialogues have identified the problematic relationship between language and identity. First and foremost, the examples have shown that Akın’s multilingual characters are complicated entities that cannot be easily categorized. Each of the figures is an individual, who does not seem to fit a prescribed stereotype. The analyses of the code switching episodes (such as the scene in Istanbul between Cahit and the taxi driver) have emphasized a flexible notion of belonging, suggesting that multiple affiliations are possible and maybe even the norm for many European citizens travelling, living, and working in different cities and countries. Similarly, the discussion of Sibel’s language use as an example for complications of national and ethnic categories has looked at code switching episodes as well as her bilingualism. By using a variety of registers within Turkish and German, Sibel complicates monocultural readings of her character. Sibel does not speak an ungrammatical German or a Kanak Sprak, which could mark her as an “other” in German society, nor does she speak only German (monolingually) as suggested for the assimilated second-generation Turkish-Germans in Bohm’s film Yasemin. Through Sibel’s flexible language use, with which she makes references to both to the so-called “Turkish” and “German” cultures, she becomes a complex character who can be read as a 172 European citizen of the 21st century, who has experienced a postmodern, urban lifestyle and immigration. Through her language use, which is linked to her dynamic lifestyle, she denies representing stereotypical national or ethnic categories such as a “Turk” or “German.” The analyses have shown that languages as well as “cultures” are both portrayed as mixed and blended, without a pure, essential core. Culture, in fact, is represented as a diverse entity in itself, which cannot be clearly identified in national or ethnic terms. Finally, an analysis of Selma’s language has positioned her as a cosmopolitan. Selma speaks English and Turkish, talks positively about Sibel’s lover and extra-marital child, drinks alcohol, travels back and forth between Germany and Turkey, and is framed as a cosmopolitan businesswoman who could easily commute and communicate with other professionals in Europe. She is, thereby, opposed to stereotypical depictions of mute, unintelligible, or passive Turkish femininity as formerly established in Turkish- German cinema of the 1970s and 1980s. Ultimately, as a multilingual character, Selma can travel and move from one European place to another. The multidirectional movement combined with the ability to communicate is a fairly recent vision of non-EU or migrant identities in German cinema. Ultimately, Europe becomes a navigable space from southeast to northwest and vice versa by multilingual, cosmopolitan subjects such as Selma. That is, the discussions have shown that through Selma’s character, business and pleasure travel refrain from being solely a privilege of the capitalist West European countries. The filmic image of the one-way economic migrant who legally or illegally tries to enter northwestern Europe from the southeastern peripheries is replaced by a multilingual Turkish cosmopolite. Lastly, the third chapter has provided an in-depth analysis of the sound of Europe in The Edge of Heaven. This chapter has examined the sounds of languages and music, 173 which provide an aural construction of a diverse Europe in the film. The sound of heterogeneity is a dominant formal and aesthetic element in Akın’s filmmaking. The use of diverse diegetic and nondiegetic film music as well as the variety of lingual sounds (accents, dialects, various languages) of the characters in the film emphasizes the careful composition of the soundtrack. In terms of music, Akın juxtaposes the sounds of German marching bands, Turkish classic film music, regional folkloric songs, Balkan inspired dance hall mixes, Bach on a banjo, and the Arabic prayer (azan) of a muezzin. The study has suggested that this seemingly eclectic composition of the diegetic soundtrack is, in fact, an embrace of the richness of European sonic heritages and past, present, and future mixes thereof. The use of renewed, dubbed or blended sounds that were formerly perceived as separate musical traditions suggests the normalization of diversity. This sonic heterogeneity is complemented by the sound of languages. Extending Hamid Naficy’s theory of the aesthetics of “accented” cinema, Akın adds, literally, “accented” languages of all characters to the sound of Europe. German characters speak Turkish or English with German accents, Turkish characters speak with Turkish accents or regional dialects, and so forth. Through this democratization of accents, the chapter has shown the increasing normalization of an aural diversity, which emerges as a key component of European spaces in Akın’s films. Ultimately, this dissertation has made the case that Akın audio-visually aestheticizes diversity in Europe and that his cinema complicates existing notions of the continent. Ultimately, in Akın’s oeuvre, the audience is exposed to stories about interpersonal relationships, with universal feelings of hope, hate, love, and wishes for reconciliation of the diverse filmic characters. These stories are contextualized within a Europe that in its experienced reality has already accepted its complicated diversity, its heterogeneous, multiethnic, and polyphonic make-up. 174 Through this project, Akın’s cinema, which has references to art house, intellectual, and entertainment , Eastern and Western Europe, and, also of the USA, has been, finally, shown to be part of a larger European context. In this context, a direct comparison of Akın with other contemporary European filmmakers such as Michael Haneke, Tom Tykwer, Philip Lioret, Yamina Benguigui, Andrea Staka, and others would complement my dissertation in highly productive ways. Further research in form of a comparison of Akın’s cinema to other, possibly but not necessarily multiethnic European filmmakers could give insights about possible new aesthetics in European filmmaking. A “decentralized,” multiethnic, and polyphonic Europe, I would argue, might be audible and visible in other contemporary films. This type of filmic staging of Europe – even if only as a matrix for other stories to be told – might be the new aesthetics of heterogeneity in contemporary European cinema.

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195 Vita

Berna Gueneli was born in Kiel, Germany. After graduating from Gymnasium Wellingdorf (high school) in Kiel with majors in Mathematics and English, Berna spend one year in Virginia with a cultural exchange program, where she studied English language and literature at Northern Virginia Community College. Back in Germany, she studied English and Spanish Philology at Christian-Albrechts-Universität zu Kiel, where she graduated in January 2004 with a Staatsexamen für das Lehramt an Gymnasien. During her studies at Kiel, Berna received various scholarships and fellowships to study abroad. For the academic year 1999/2000, Berna was the recipient of a teaching fellowship from the Ministry of Education in Germany, which permitted her to study Spanish and American literature at the University of León, Spain and to teach German at the state language school of León. In 2001/2002, she was selected as an Overseas Exchange Fellow to study at Indiana University, where she received an M.A. in English. Finally, in 2003, Berna was awarded an Erasmus scholarship for one semester to do research for her graduation thesis on Ramón del Valle-Inclán’s Jardin Umbrío. For her research, she attended the Universities of La Coruña and Santiago de Compostela. Her postgraduate studies in German directed her to Texas Tech University, where she graduated with an M.A. in German. In the fall semester of 2006, Berna began her PhD studies at the University of Texas at Austin where she enjoyed exploring course work in Weimar Culture, German Cinema, Intellectual History, and Media Studies. With the help of a Continuing Fellowship, Berna began research for her dissertation during the academic year of 2009/2010, finalizing the project in the following academic year. Berna is graduating with a PhD in Germanic Studies in Spring 2011.

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This dissertation was typed by the author.

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