The Edge of Heaven

When I saw “Head-On,” (2004) a story of angst, alienation, and sex among Turkish immigrants living in Germany, I was deeply impressed by the wild exuberance of the characters and the conservative ending of the narrative. Fatih Akin, who was born in Germany but is of Turkish heritage, made the film, and is now out with another, “The Edge of Heaven,” (2008) likewise concerned with dispossession and the conflicted nature of immigrants in the modern world. Despite the violence in the film, it is gentler, very sensitive, and more expansive in terms of character. It is about six characters in search of each other—two mothers, two daughters, and a father and a son—as they criss-cross between Germany and Turkey and back again, finally ending in Turkey, with a scene on a beach by the Black Sea.

The movie opens with Ali (Runcel Kurtiz), a retired elderly Turkish man making a tour of a red light district in Bremen, Germany. He picks out a middle-aged hooker name Yeter (Nusel Kose), also Turkish, and the two hit it off, so Ali makes a number of return visits. In between she is threaten by some Islamic moral guardians who tell her to quit her trade or die. Fortuitously, Ali makes her an offer she can’t refuse: Come live with me and I’ll pay for everything. She says yes, by all means, it is better than death. His only proviso is you must sleep with only me. Ali lives with his son, Nejat (Baki Davarak), a professor of German Literature in Bremen, a quiet, studious young man. At first he is skeptical about his father’s deal with Yeter, but after a heart-to-heart with her he begins to appreciate her. He also finds out she has a 27 year old daughter in Turkey who is a student. But the old man is very jealous and drinks a lot, and he gets it in his head his son has had sex with Yeter, and in a rage he accidentally kills her and ends up in jail. Nejat disowns his father for his brutal act and heads to Turkey to find the daughter to make amends for the father, perhaps by offering her financial aid. But in Istanbul it is like looking for a needle in a haystack.

The girl, named Ayten (Nurgul Yesilcy), is no longer a student but a political activist against a government she considers oppressive. The first time we see her she is running from the secret police after she fires a couple shots from a handgun. They see her as a “terrorist” but she calls herself a “freedom-fighter.” Ironically, she flees Turkey just as Nejat arrives there; she heads to Germany. While on the run she encounters a German student, Lotte Straub (Patrycia Ziolkowska) who helps her and who is taken by Ayten’s beauty and passion. An affair commences which disturbs Lotte mother, Susanne, who is played by none other than the Fassbinder star from the seventies, Hanna Schygulla, now a rotund older woman of 65. The glamour is gone but she still has presence on screen and handles her role with considerable skill. She disapproves of the politics, not the Lesbian thing. Then disaster intervenes as the police stop the two girls and Ayten is incarcerated, as a person without papers. Meanwhile, Nejat has given up his search for Ayten (whose traveling under another name) and given up teaching and bought a small bookstore in order to stay in Turkey. He bought the store from a German who was homesick. When Ayten is shipped back to a prison in Turkey. Lotte follows her and tries to help, with no success. Along the way she happens to stop at Nejat’s bookstore and eventually rents a room from him. (Again we know the connection between them that they don’t know.) Ayten persuades Lotte to find the handgun that she hid and to bring it to her, as she and some others are preparing a prison break; but some street urchins snatch her purse and when she catches up to them one of the boys kills her with the gun. (This section of the film is titled “Lotte’s Death,” so I am not giving anything away.) When Ayten is given the news—Lotte’s death has turned into an international incident—she is crushed and feels an enormous guilt. When we see her mother buying the ticket for Turkey she is standing next to Ali, who is out of prison and going back to the village he was born in. They pass each other like the proverbial ships in the night of unknowingness. One has to wonder how often we all do that. Susanne cries for days when she gets to Istanbul, but finally emerges from her hotel determined to assist Ayten any way she can and to check where Lotte was living. On a whim, she rents Lotte’s old room, becomes friends with Nejat and helps Ayten get out of jail; she also helps resolve Nejat’s ill will toward his father. We see the two women, who had hated each other not long ago, embrace in the bookstore while Nejat is on his way to see his father, to practice a little forgiveness in his relationship with him. But Ali is out fishing but will be back soon, so we see Najet sit down to wait and as he waits the credits run. We never actually see him embrace his father but we believe it will happen.

In “The Edge of Heaven” life, fate, coincidence, forgiveness, and redemption weave their way through the six characters like strands of a puzzle seeking unity and comprehension. There are also a few shifts in time and space to enhance the sense of a background force to foreground events. The layered narrative also hints at a hidden cohesion. However, Akin stops short of connecting all the dots for us, letting the connections stay a tease of potential resolution and unity. For example, we never see Najet’s father show up. I also figured from the start of the movie that Najet and Ayten would get together, but the film ends before that could happen. If we so desire, since we know more than the characters do, we can connect the dots as we see fit. We could close the circle of fate and coincidence. Perhaps that is what Akin had in mind from the beginning. He was happy to make the brew, but we have to read the tea leaves.

The Powell Endorsement

Colin Powell, as the rumor suggested, did endorse Obama on Meet the Press on Sunday. He said he would break with his party because they had gone too far to the right, and despite the fact his old friend of 25 years, John McCain, was the Republican choice for president he had decided that Obama had “style and substance” and would be a “transformational president,” a trait of considerable importance at the current time of crisis. . Secondarily, he had to question McCain’s judgment for picking Sarah Palin as his running mate when it was clear she wasn’t ready to be president. In addition, he mentioned Obama’s ability to inspire, to run an inclusive campaign, and to have exceptional rhetorical skills. One of the things he did in his statement was he separated McCain from the party because it was the party that was really off the track. He zeroed in on the Bill Ayers fiasco and the robocalls that peddled nonsense about the relationship between Ayers and Obama. The ads were trying to link the two men, as if they were partners in crime, fellow terrorists on the prowl on American streets, and such treatment was out of bounds and it should stop. “Mr. McCain called him a washed up terrorist, but then why do we keep hearing about him?” He said it was a “very, very limited relationship,” but somehow that is enough to lethally “taint” Mr. Obama character. He said the charge went “too far” and therefore, was “inappropriate.” He complained about the increasing narrowness of the campaign the party had forced McCain into, arguing the Ayers episode was hardly worthy of the attention they were giving it, while huge economical issues were foremost on the mind of every citizen. Those issues were coming out differently every other day with the McCain campaign, with no controlling central argument. The party was in a sorry state and he was speaking out in the hopes of returning it to a centrist-right position, where it belongs.

Right on the heels of the Powell statement, former National Security Adviser, Zbigniew Brzezniski told the Huffingfton Post that Powell’s endorsement represented a “comprehensive indictment “of the McCain-Palin ticket and by implication, the entire Republican Party. He also said he felt the endorsement would be “a major factor in the race,” which has a little over two weeks to go. That seemed to be the opinion of many commentators throughout the day. He agreed that the McCain-Palin ticket represented a “break” from the traditional Republican Party. He also thought Powell’s endorsement should not be read as strictly “racial solidarity,” as he was more like “an elder statement “ with diverse accomplishments. Lastly, he saw the former Secretary of State as the first member of the Bush Administration to break rank. And it’s about time too. Powell needs to earn back some of the respect he lost by cooperating so extensively with the Bushies, especially that speech he gave about WMDs in Iraq at the UN. Still, I am sure Mr. Obama is thrilled by his endorsement.

Zen-Bama vs. the Macho Military Man

I said in the FORUM not long ago that John McCain was going to lose this election due to his temperament, not issues. After watching the final Television debate, I am all the more convinced of that. McCain came out of his corner ready to lay his opponent flat on his ass. He combined Jack Dempsey with General MacArthur, maintaining as much intensity as he could for 90 minutes, and always on the attack. At moments he was the Big Scold, in others he was a grimacing Warden. In vivid contrast, Obama came out like a calm and self-assured Sugar Ray Robinson, pound for pound the best in his weight and class; he was almost serene as he fought off body blows and was very adept at counter-punching. He never lost his cool while McCain fumed, fussed, and could not hide or mollify his emotions.

From the standpoint of information and spirited exchanges, this was the best debate. But that isn’t what won the debate for Obama. He won because this debate, like the other two, was a clear-cut expose of the Senator McCain’s temperament, that is, his deep-seated anger, his negativity and impatience, which registered on his pliant and helplessly expressive face, his smirky smiles, and his troubled and teeth-clenching certainty. He wanted to change the debate into the FIGHT CLUB, rather typical of a macho military man. Obama, sensing his campaign is well ahead on points decided all he needed to do was avoid a knockout blow and show how steady he could be under fire. Letting McCain blow off every which way was a smart tactic. Let him sink himself.

In the final analysis, it all boils down to this: I think any Republican would have a tough time winning this year; the majority of voters have had enough of them for now; let the other guys try to save the day. They are tired of getting the short end of the stick, weary of this worship of Wealth for the few and Wall Street’s greed and recklessness. The Republican’s credo is business first, workers second; free trade first, human rights second; and men first, women second. If that isn’t evidence of class warfare, I don’t know what is. McCain is still in sync with the Ultra-conservatives who have been in the saddle for 8 long years, with the clique that has taken us all to the edge of financial collapse. Obama is a better bet to back us off from the Abyss.

Cole and Hitch in Appoloosa

Westerns, which aren’t as popular as they once were, come in two basic kinds: Those that attempt to use the form to elevate historical understanding or create mythic figures, to achieve narrative scope and resonance beyond the bare bones of the telling; and those that tell an action story about good guys vs. bad guys, and thereby to entertain or divert attentions from the trials and tribulations of the day.

Two Westerns of the first type would be “Wild Bunch” and “The Assassination of Jesse James By The Coward Robert Ford.” Pike Bishop and his gang got stranded on the saddleback of the history. On one side the 19^th century was slipping away from them, removing the terra firma they had stood on for many years, while on the other side, the 20^th century, with all its motor cars, machine guns, airplanes, petty tyrants, and revolutions, came rushing in and they were forced to deal with a new context, one they did not take to or want to be part of. So they decided to go out in a blaze of gunfire, taking with them the petty tyrant, his men, and the German Officers who pointed to an even more dreadful future. Jesse James illustrates the power of legend over fact. John Ford was fond of saying; if it came to a choice between fact and legend, always choose the legend. He knew that legend had more appeal and more legs than simple fact. Jesse James killed 16 men, but the family made money after he was dead collecting fees from the mass of admires who wanted to stand by his grave for a minute or two. Having an actor like Brad Pitt play Jesse just expanded the heroic dimensions of the outlaw. The role followed his turn as Achilles in “Troy.” His persona seems carved for such roles.

Two Westerns of the second type, to use current examples, would be “3:10 to Yuma” and the newly released “Appoloosa.” They are like resurgent B-movies of decades past, but with characters updated, mostly in evil and nastiness, and with slicker production values. They are movies designed to thrill, entertain and distract. They have, as it were, a lower horizon of intent and meaning. Mind you, they are good as far as they go. I think Ed Harris, the director of “Appoloosa,” understood that from the outset.

I am a sucker for Westerns of either kind. I like the idea of a world apart, participating in time but yet at a remove from time, a world with its own rules of engagement and standards of behavior, which put a premium on individual courage and skill. There were small frontier towns in the 1880s with odd names like Appoloosa or Big Whiskey, with saloons with paintings of naked ladies over the bar, with a few more ladies upstairs to satisfy the customers, with some fine ladies too, and a schoolmarm, who falls for the handsome gunmen. And of course you have the shoot-outs, the stable set piece of Westerns. “Appoloosa” is essentially a buddy movie in Western dress. Virgil Cole (Ed Harris) and Everett Hitch (Viggo Mortensen) have been together for a dozen years. They are almost like a married couple, with Virgil being the leader but Hitch being smarter and always helping Vigil out when he’s stumped on how to pronounce a big word like “sequestered.” There’s good deal of sly, understated humor in their relationship, which is one of the more likeable things about the movie. They have come to this small Western town in New Mexico to do something about Randall Bragg (Jeremy Irons, minus his accent), a culprit who single-handedly shot the Marshall and his two deputies and whose men do whatever they want in Appoloosa with impunity. The gang he’s assembled look like tramps with six-guns; they all need a shave, a bath and clean clothes. The City Fathers have called in Cole and Hitch to rid them of this contagion. The pair dispense with 4 of the gang straight away with a shoot-out in the saloon, which arouses the ire of Bragg. Their authority to kill these men and to go after Bragg comes from a document the City Fathers have signed giving the pair the complete authority of law. That’s how they operate, as independent and freelance gunmen with a license to kill. They spend quite a bit of the movie chasing Bragg, who is a slippery devil, and even Chester Arthur, the President of the United States comes into play, helping him escape their clutches. But he gets his just desserts in the end.

Now there is a lady in this story, Ally French (Renee Zellweger) whose motto is “Love the one your with.” She is somewhere between and whore and a fine lady, as she dresses nicely, plays the piano, and, as Virgil says, “she’s very clean.” She ensnares Virgil, who is a bit green behind the ears when it comes to designing women, and before you know it he’s building a house for the two of them and thinking about settling down. Hitch knows better because the lady has made a play for him too. Later in the film we see her naked in a stream with another gunslinger who supposedly had kidnapped her. Hitch points out this romp to Virgil and it makes him swallow hard. He’s been a fool but he remains taken with her. On the other hand, Ally give an explanation for her loose behavior that I thought was very good, in that it explains the constraints of a single woman in the old West. She says she does what does because she’s alone, she’s afraid, and she has no money and no real way to make any. Does a woman on her own have much choice? That could unhinge many a soul. Perhaps that’s why Virgil cuts her some slack and ends up at her side at the end of the movie.

“Appoloosa” was Harris first film to direct since ‘Pollock.” I liked the character-driven plot and the relationship between Cole and Hitch but some of spaces between action sequences are pretty slow-paced and drag the energy of the film down. I wanted to pump some vitality into those sections. The gunplay is minimal and quick, but then it was often like that in the Old West. After all, the gunfight at the OK Corral was over with in less than a minute. So Harris took his time in between all those flying bullets.

Youth Without Youth

“Francis Ford Coppola has made Eliade whole again.”

Well, you all know who Coppola is, but I suspect for many of you Mircea Eliade won’t ring a bell. He was a well-known scholar of the History of Religion, Mysticism, Myth, Reincarnation, and the Paranormal. In addition to his scholarly work he wrote novels that expressed some of his knowledge in another form. Romanian by birth, with most of his books published in Europe, his final years were spent in the US, at the University of Chicago, where he died in 1986. Coppola read one of his novels, YOUTH WITHOUT YOUTH, published in 1976, and he decided its subject matter, Time, Mysticism, the Paranormal, and the transmigration of souls, would be a great challenge to translate to film, something he hadn’t done for ten years. He took some of the money he made from his successful winery in northern California and decided to make the film in Europe where it would be less expensive to make and would reflect the world and geography of the written story. The quote above comes from an appreciation of the movie by another scholar of the same subject matter, Jeffrey Kipal, who gave it a fairer hearing than most professional film critics, who were pretty baffled by the movie and put it down because they were. It is a difficult and complex movie about tricky subject matter, but it is worth seeing and thinking about.

Here are the basic facts of the narrative. Dominic Matei (Tim Roth) is a 70 year old academic in Romania who is unmarried, lonely, and ready to commit suicide because he has not been able to finish his magnum opus, a book about the origins of language and consciousness, which he has spent his life writing. There was a girl in his past, Laura (Alexandra Maria Lara), who he intended to marry, but she broke it off due to his obsession with his book. While in Bucharest on Easter Sunday in 1938, he is struck by a bolt of lightning as he is crossing the street in a thunderstorm. It is a direct hit but somehow, miraculously, he not only survives but after long months of recovery he emerges a new being, what Kipal calls a “post-historic man.” He loses all his teeth but new ones come in; he looks like a man of 40 not 70 with a full shock of brown not gray hair, and he has extraordinary powers of memory, thought, and “supernatural” powers, like telekinesis. He is also sexually reborn. The electromagnetic blast catapulted him into the future; evolution has reached new heights in his new person. But he is cautious at first about who and what he has become. Only his doctor (Bruno Ganz) knows the complete truth about what happened. In sum, he seems to embody what future humanity has the potential to become.

Does this sound familiar? I thought of the X-Men right away. Like them, Dominic is a “Mutant Marvel.” This is a much different take on the idea but the core idea is the same. But news of this Mutant Marvel finally reaches the Nazis. While he was recovering the doctor protected him and encouraged him to dig into his memory; he often dreams about Laura and many other things. He more or less retrieves his personality. One particular Nazi doctor wants to study him, like he was some kind of bug, but Dominic escapes his clutches by using telekinesis. He revives his life of study and eventually meets a girl named Veronica (Alexandra Maria Lara), who is none other Laura come round again—reincarnated—so the two of them get a second chance. (The original Laura had died young in childbirth.) But it isn’t all that simple. In a weird twist of synchronicity, Veronica also gets struck by lightning, on a trip to the Alps. He finds her in a cave; she is in a dreamy state, can only speak Sanskrit--he does too-- and she says she is a student of some 14^th century Indian guru/philosopher that Dominic knows about. An Italian Orientalist comes from Rome to authenticate her story. (In the novel it is Buddhologist Guiseppe Tucci and depth Psychologist Carl Jung, experts in real life.) . Eventually she returns to herself and she and Dominic go off to Malta to be alone. Love blossoms like it never had a chance to in the past. But then she starts to regress again, going back to Egypt, then Mesopotamia, speaking the language of both places, and then to a mysterious place with an unknown language. Dominic is very excited that he is getting close to his lifetime’s goal, but there is a hitch. In an inverse relation to what happened to him after his rendezvous with the flash from the heavens, Veronica ages beyond her years (25) with each regression. ( I have met a number of European men who have had this idea of women being the ground of being and vessels they can use to transport themselves by mental powers to other dimensions of consciousness.) He realizes if he pushes her any farther she could die, so he leaves her for a second time, for her own good. We later see a picture of her, once again young and beautiful, with two kids. Dominic has gone full circle so he heads back to where he started from, at his old university, now 88 years old but still looking 40.

For those of you who intend to see the film I will refrain from discussing the ending. For it to have impact you must be open to the closing. Some of you will have figured it out. And I do hope you see it, as it is worthwhile. There is much in the narrative that I haven’t touched on, like Dominic’s alter ego, who we first see in a mirror and later the two of them have dialogues about what is going on, somewhat similar to Kevin Costner and William Hurt in “Mr. Brooks.” There is also the mysterious story of the three red roses.

Finally, a word about Coppola’s skills. He still knows how to put images together and he handles color relationships very well. All the set pieces are excellent, authoritative. Nothing on that level has been diminished by time and winemaking. He also coaxes a very fine performance out of Tim Roth in a difficult role, one in which he has to speak in several languages and write with Chinese characters.

It is now available on DVD.

Letter to a Friend

Dear Harry,

This morning I received a short E-mail from a friend from my days in California who now lives in Canada while holding dual citizenship. It read: “What should I do? Every time I see that bimbo on TV, I want to vomit! If Republicans pull this out I might have to surrender my US passport…. How has the country gone so low?”

That’s a tough question to answer. It does feel like we are living through the Endgame of what Oswald Spengler called the Late City Culture, the last stage of the “Decline of the West.” It is a time when the Circus dominates, a bimbo can be the Lion Tamer, and everything is topsy-turvy. I keep thinking of that line from “Subterranean Homesick Blues,” the pump don’t work/because the vandals took the handle.” I also keep playing Dylan’s “Desolation Row.” It’s where my mind is tending.

Yeah, it takes a lot of faith and plenty of will power to get out of bed these days. The John McCain who was once a respected figure on Capitol Hill is long gone, his honesty and integrity shot to hell by age, ambition, and Karl Rove’s Death Squad. Without his BABE McCain’s campaign would have been long gone too. Palin is keeping him in the game with her act, now with whip in hand, the scourge of Obama and his tainted friends and associates. The two of them have abandoned all pretense of having a program or fresh ideas; they are going for a negative assault the rest of the way in a last ditch all out attempt to catch and crush Obama, who currently leads by several points. It worked before, why not again? And it might, so many of the voters are sleepwalking or too preoccupied with survival to check the truth behind the lies and distortions.

All of the weaknesses of Democracy seem so exposed right now. The masses are so vulnerable to the “Big Lie” and to top-down government, with a strong leader with the “Big Stick.” How can a cranky ex-pilot and a dumbass bimbo even contend with two men of intellect and quality? How can she be the toast of the town in certain quarters? It is a sign of how low the Republicans have sunk. It is said that swing voters don’t like negative campaigning and smear tactics, plus if all the young people who have signed up to vote actually go to the polls to cast a ballot, Obama will win—and decisively. As for shenanigans or voting fraud, I asked my daughter in Florida how do things look there, and she said that a small army of lawyers has been all over the issue for months.

And then of course there is the big question: Will the voters who say they are for Obama actually vote for him? Or will they reconsider in the privacy of the voting booth?

Yours hopefully,

Jerry P

The VP Debate

Last night Sarah Palin did not crash and burn as some suspected, even hoped, she would. But even if she has rehabilitated herself to an extent, I doubt it was a game-breaker. What she proved in the debate with Biden was this: The Sarah who does not respond well to in-you-face-questioning is one aspect of her personality; and the Sarah who has a script to lean on can shine and sound reasonably coherent; that is another facet of who she is. She is not an impromptu speaker; spontaneity is not her forte. She is an actress, indeed, she was winking at the audience, hamming it up, very animated, and in touch with the charisma she knows is there, which can shine in the right circumstance. And by shine I mean she was centered and confident, self-contained and proactive, like she was in St. Paul. She put on quite an act as the down-home, folksy hockey mom who feels comfortable using colloquial expressions and thumbing her nose at all those highfalutin types who populate the government in Washington D.C. Unlike them, she is the salt of the earth. (She is also a fundamentalist Christian concerned with the evils witchcraft and the End of Days.) She let Gwen Ifill know her questions were optional. She would talk about whatever she wanted to; the important thing was to speak directly to the American people. So in essence she gave a variation on her stump speech, steering clear of specifics. She and McCain still lack a central argument and become more than a little blustery when talking about the economy and the financial crisis, which is fast upon us all. As for Joe Biden last night, he performed up to expectations, staying on the side of policy and nuance, history and specific solutions, without ever sounding too wonky or professorial. He was a gentleman throughout the debate. He made his points well, and according to the polls afterwards his knowledge of issues factor shot up from 79 % to 98%, and you can’t do much better than that. Her stats on the same issues also spiked, going from 39% to 55%. But she has a long way to go to persuade many Americans that she has the right stuff to be VP or president.

She did make some news last night, rather unexpectedly too. She said when she becomes VP she would work to expand the powers and responsibilities of the office. Since past is prologue, that idea, in post-Cheney times, could be a dangerous idea, especially with such an ambitious woman. She knows how appealing she is to the base and it seems to me she wants to capitalize on that. Andrea Mitchell of MSNBC said after the debate that she felt Palin was positioning herself for 2012. That could be.

To wet my finger and stick it in the air to see which way the wind is blowing, I’d say the tide is turning in Obama’s favor. Charles Krauthammer, one of the country’s leading conservative columnists and a commentator on FOX NEWS, said today about Obama, “He has a first-class intellect and a first-class temperament. That will likely be enough to make him president.” Obama is scoring better than McCain on the economic issues, which is the main engine driving his campaign right now.. Another indicator of progress is the fact McCain has pulled his people out of Michigan, conceding the state to Obama whose economic message hits home there where there is so much unemployment. McCain continues to flail about, zigzagging all over the lot. McCain’s other problem is temperament. His attitude at the first debate—angry, contemptuous, never looking at Obama, tense, and smirking a lot—did not sit well with some voters. The cool, calm, and collected attitude of Obama is winning people over. He seems more presidential.