Head-On (Gegen die Wand), directed and written by Fatih Akin, is primarily a story about the transformation of Cahit Tomruk (played by Birol Ünel), a Turk whose family went to Hamburg in search of a better life. He is a German citizen without a family who, at about the age of forty, has been living in squalor since his wife died. When the film begins, his job consists of picking up bottles on the floor of a nightclub, after which he gets drunk and totals his car by running into a wall head on. Although he survives the crash, he is accommodated at a mental facility along with Sibel Güner (played by Sibel Kekilli), a twenty-year-old Turkish woman who also has recently committed suicide. She asks him to marry so that she can break free from traditional parents. What is in common between them is that both are victims of anti-Turkish discrimination by Germans, and she believes that they can at least become roommates. After trying to avoid her proposal, Cahit finally agrees, her parents agree, and they indeed get married. But they are not in love, and they prefer other sex partners. Although Cahit has doubtless evoked no sympathy from filmviewers, he changes as Sibel cleans up his apartment and serves him delicious meals. One night he goes to a nightclub to see her, is roughed up by some of the patrons, presumably her former tricks; she then takes him home and nurses him back to health. Cahit is now in love with Sibel, and they finally have sex together. One night, however, one of her former tricks is in the same bar with Cahit, though Sibel is absent; when the trick needles Cahit with an insult of Sibel, Cahit fatally though unintentionally beans him with a beer bottle. Cahit goes to prison, while Sibel's parents disown her. Sibel tells Cahit that she will wait for him, but she goes to Istanbul, where her older sister Selma (played by Meltem Kumbul) takes her in at first. When Cahit gets out of prison, he is no longer the wild man that he was before. He flies to Istanbul to rejoin her, only to discover from Selma that she has a daughter and might not want to see him again. In a few days, they nevertheless meet, have sex, and he begs her to join him, as he plans to return to his hometown in a country that he never before experienced despite his meager knowledge of the Turkish language. When the film ends, filmviewers must guess whether Sibel and her daughter join Cahit on the bus, which departs the station in Istanbul. Turkish gypsy music punctuates the story, notably a singer and a band of six instruments who perform in the foreground; in the background is the beautiful city of Istanbul and its Grand Mosque. MH
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