IMDb > Gegen die Wand (2004)
Gegen die Wand
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Gegen die Wand (2004) More at IMDbPro »

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Gegen die Wand (2004) -- Open-ended Trailer from Strand Releasing
Gegen die Wand (2004) -- kino-zeit.de - Trailer (Flash) (German)

Overview

User Rating:
8.0/10   14,942 votes
MOVIEmeter: ?
Up 2% in popularity this week. See why on IMDbPro.
Director:
Writer:
Fatih Akin (book)
Contact:
View company contact information for Head-On on IMDbPro.
Release Date:
11 March 2004 (Germany) more
Genre:
Plot:
In 'Gegen die Wand' Cahit, a 40-something male from Mersin in Turkey has removed everything Turkish from his life... more | full synopsis
Plot Keywords:
Awards:
23 wins & 11 nominations more
User Comments:
Splashy chronicle of a generation in revolt against tradition (worth watching) more (70 total)

Cast

  (Credited cast)

Birol Ünel ... Cahit Tomruk

Sibel Kekilli ... Sibel
Catrin Striebeck ... Maren

Meltem Cumbul ... Selma (Cousine)
Stefan Gebelhoff ... Nico
Francesco Fiannaca ... Mann am Tresen
Mona Mur ... Stammkundin Zoe Bar

Ralph Misske ... Patient 1 (Psychiatrie)

Philipp Baltus ... Patient 2 (Psychiatrie)
Hermann Lause ... Dr. Schiller
Karin Niwiger ... Kassiererin (Psychiatrie)
Demir Gökgöl ... Yunus Güner (Vater)
Cem Akin ... Yilmaz Güner (Bruder)
Aysel Iscan ... Birsen Güner (Mutter)
rest of cast listed alphabetically:
Monique Akin ... Kundin im Friseurladen
Canan Ata ... Canan
Cahit Aygüler ... Schläger
Adam Bousdoukos ... Barmann - Hochzeitsnacht
Yilmaz Canan ... Türsteher #1
Aytun Ede ... Musiker
Selim Erdogan ... Taxifahrer
Tugay Erverdi ... Osman #3
Nurcan Esmertürk ... Nurcan
Marco Greiser ... Abschlepper Disco

Orhan Güner ... Busfahrer
Sileyman Kaplan ... Sly
Hatun Kazci ... Hatice
Güven Kiraç ... Seref
Feridun Koc ... Osman #1

Mehmet Kurtulus ... Barmann Istanbul
Zarah McKenzie ... Barfrau in der Fabrik
Alma Ouglu Sahin ... Türsteher 2
Reinhold Schulz ... Gefängnisbeamter
Tulga Serim ... Osman #2

Tim Seyfi ... Bayerischer Taxifahrer
Herr Tekin ... Barbier
Andreas Thiel ... Standesbeamter
Misra Tomruk ... Pamuk - Tochter
Senol Ugurlu ... Shane
more
Create a character page for: ?

Additional Details

Also Known As:
Head-On (International: English title) (UK) (USA)
Duvara karsi (Turkey: Turkish title)
more
MPAA:
Rated R for strong graphic sexuality, pervasive language, some brutal violence and drug content.
Runtime:
121 min
Country:
Color:
Aspect Ratio:
1.85 : 1 more
Sound Mix:
Company:

Fun Stuff

Trivia:
The taxi drivers in Istanbul were originally cast the other way round: The "Bavarian" was supposed to pick up Sibel, and the other one to fetch Cahit from the airport. more
Goofs:
Errors made by characters (possibly deliberate errors by the filmmakers): The psychiatrist at the beginning of the film tells Cahit about a song by the band The The containing the line "If you can't change the world, change your world". The actual quote (from the song "Lonely Planet", included in the album "Dusk") is "If you can't change the world, change yourself". more
Quotes:
Cahit: I'm sorry I ran off before.
Sibel: That's OK.
Cahit: I'm a mental case, you know?
Sibel: [Kisses Cahit]
more
Movie Connections:
Featured in 2006 Independent Spirit Awards (2006) (TV) more
Soundtrack:
My Man Don't Love Me more

FAQ

This FAQ is empty. Add the first question.
108 out of 124 people found the following comment useful.
Splashy chronicle of a generation in revolt against tradition (worth watching), 24 January 2005
Author: Chris Knipp from Berkeley, California

Head On (Gegen die Wand), winner of the top prize "Golden Bear" at the 2004 Berlin Festival, is occasionally interrupted by a panoramic shot of a singer performing in front of a small Turkish orchestra on the banks of the Bosphorus across from Istanbul. It's a simple, at first incomprehensible, little device that provides punctuation and clarity amid the chaos and melodrama that otherwise dominate this story of a Turkish man in his forties and a twenty-year-old Turkish woman who meet in a psychiatric facility in Germany when both have attempted suicide -- he by crashing his car into a wall ("head on"), she by slitting her wrists. Cahit Tomruk (the sublimely attitudinizing Birol Ünel) is a purposeless rock 'n' roll loving boozer with a dead-end job collecting bottles at a club, and Sibel Güner (the wiry, intense Sibel Kikulli) is a young woman with conservative Turkish parents who wants to escape family pressures.

Both are total drama queens and both are German-born Turks. Cahit is more assimilated; his Turkish isn't even good. Sibel figures if he'll agree to marry her that'll get her away from her family. This is the irony of their situation: she must capitulate to the conventions of their culture in order to gain some freedom from it, and he must capitulate to society in order to get some sense of purpose. So they do get married -- he somehow passes muster with the stuffy family, baulking all the way -- and they eventually even fall in love. Her joie de vivre is exactly what he needs, and she's essentially just as wild in her way as he is in his -- but his nihilism and violence continue unabated and so does her promiscuity, and his brutal attack on one of her one night stands leads to jail and scandal, which in turn forces her to go to Istanbul. While he's incarcerated she writes him sustaining letters from Turkey -- their relationship, like the staid orchestra on the Bosphorus, is a stable element amid the surrounding chaos -- and after jail he goes to Turkey to find her.

To say this turbulent, brightly colored, lurid story is a "realistic picture of Turks in Germany" would be a total distortion of the truth. But somehow the situation of Cahit and Sibel reflects the unstable moods this half assimilated, half alien population experiences, and however melodramatic and unresolved the saga is, the two main characters are very well realized. The actors are strong, especially Birol Ünel, whose charismatic brooding and ravaged good looks make him irresistibly watchable. Both feel real to us -- he sardonic and gloomy, she dangerously spirited and full of life-- despite her dramatic suicide attempts, of which there's more than one. The story, as much as the images through which it's told, is both dark and vibrant.

We need the Brechtian, Greek-chorus device of those orchestral interludes on the Bosphorus, though: without an occasional break the drama and darkness would be too much. We also need to go with the flow of this movie, and not expect it to be more polished or more organized, or even better looking, than it is. It looks unlike most films we're seeing now, but that doesn't mean the cinematographer hasn't done the best possible job. What it has is life, tumultuous with incident, strong personalities, and a milieu we've not seen before. There's also a loud, authentic-feeling rock-pop soundtrack and a cunning contrast between Cahit's punk-rock sensibility and Sibel's love of good grooming and dance. Arguably the movie is too long, but that length gives it the feel of a saga, which it must have, because that's what it is, the confused, tawdry epic of a generation. Like all first films by a whole subculture, it has a lot to talk about. When Sibel and Cahit discover they still love each other, after everything, it's the Turkish Germans discovering that they have self-worth. The last scenes are open-ended: this generation's future is anybody's guess.

Seen in Paris 17 September 2004. Opening in the US in January 2005. First German film to win a Golden Bear in Berlin in eighteen years.

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Message Boards

Discuss this movie with other users on IMDb message board for Gegen die Wand (2004)
Recent Posts (updated daily)User
Mersin or back to Germany (Maren)? antiailurophobiac
one the greatest movies I have ever seen in my life! orih77
Meeting Cahit in the bus station tim_aylett
Sibel's baby sequanai
FSK 12 Rating in Germany beatrixd-1
song not in soundtrack. (scene - marin and cahit ) kadir_irfan
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