Edge of Heaven | 
| Director: Fatih Akin
Actors: Nurgul Yesilcay, Baki Davrak, Tuncel Kurtiz, Hanna Schygulla, Patrycia Ziolkowska
Studio: Strand Releasing
Category: DVD
List Price: $27.99
Buy New: $16.49
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Avg. Customer Rating:  8 reviews
Sales Rank: 7227
Format: Color, Dolby, Dvd-video, Ntsc, Subtitled, Widescreen
Languages: English (Original Language), German (Original Language), English (Subtitled)
Rating: Unrated
Number Of Items: 1
Running Time: 116
Aspect Ratio: 1.66:1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.2
Dimensions (in): 7.1 x 5.4 x 0.6
MPN: 2801
UPC: 712267280124
EAN: 0712267280124
ASIN: B001DB6J82
Theatrical Release Date: 2007
Release Date: October 14, 2008
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Shipping: International shipping available
Condition: BRAND NEW Factory Sealed - Ready to be shipped within 24 hrs from California - Average 5 workdays delivery time - Excellent customer service - Buy with confidence!
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Product Description
Studio: Strand Releasing Release Date: 10/14/2008 Run time: 116 minutes Rating: Ur
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| Customer Reviews: Read 3 more reviews...
Prima! November 14, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
This has to be Fatih Akin's best movie yet. Excellent movie with a great soundtrack. We get to see some of the Turkish-German relations. I strongly recommend regardless if you know German or Turkish!
 subtle and very watchable November 6, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
The Edge of Heaven, to give you it's correct title, is a film that has received a lot of attention from worldwide film buffs. What you have here is a film that explores identity in a world in which realisations come much too late but, God willing, come.
There are several characters in the film whose stories interconnect and whose lives directly or indirectly affect one another's. The German professor, his father, his father's girlfriend, his father's girlfriend's daughter, his father's girlfriend's daughter's girlfriend...you see where this is going, a domino-like effect in narration which builds up throughout the film.
The Edge of Heaven does not attempt to bash you over the head with its meaning. It takes its time to show you, to move you, and its cinematography is never anything less than beautiful. The actors do a good job (although the Turkish girl is slightly grating) and my personal favourite is the old man: bitter, independent and very much alive.
Comes highly recommended.
Some Keen Observations of Parent Child Relationships October 26, 2008
23 out of 24 found this review helpful
THE EDGE OF HEAVEN (AUF DER ANDEREN SEITE) is a superb piece of writing by writer/director Fatih Akin - a study essentially about family fragility and strength as heightened by the immigrant struggles that both bond and divide. It is an intelligent film, well acted, and presented in a challenging manner that defines it as an art film of the first order.
We are given three families to inspect, families whose paths cross not only by coincidence by also by a common 'border' between Germany and Turkey - a division that provides not only tension and emphasis in separation and communication flaws in relationships, but also allows the sensitive cinematographer the opportunity to contrast the dark German portions with the hot light of the Turkish segments.
The film opens innocently enough with a scene where young professor Nejat (Baki Davrak), a Turkish immigrant teaching in Germany, stops for gas - an ordinary event in life that will be recapitulated at movie's close. Nejat's elderly father Ali Aksu (Yuncel Kurtiz) wanders the red light district and encounters a Turkish immigrant hooker Yeter (Nusel Kose) whom he invites to come live with him for the same money that she would make in prostitution. The home setting (Nejat, Ali, Yeter) is flawed and at the moment of dissolution Yeter dies accidentally during an altercation with Ali. Ali is jailed and Nejat feels compelled to go to Istanbul to find and assist Yeter's daughter. Meanwhile Yeter's daughter Ayten (Nurgut Yesilcay) is participating in anti government demonstrations and manages to flee to Germany to find her mother and is befriended by Lotte (Patrycia Ziokowska), a student whose mother Susanne (Hanna Schygulla) disapproves of Lotte's relationship with Ayten. Ayten is forced to flee to Istanbul, Lotte follows and tragedy occurs. In a manner of twists and turns and fast-forwards and reflective moments the three families (Nejat/Ali, Yeter/Ayten, and Susanne/Lotte) intersect, always propelled by the need for acceptance and love and succor.
The levels of interpretation are many and writer/director Fatih Akin serves them well. The superb cinematography is in the masterful hands of Rainer Klausmann and the musical score is enhanced by recordings of a late Turkish artist as integrated by composer Shantel . This is a stunning, fast paced, emotionally involving film filled with pleas of understanding of many problems that daily call for our attention. In Turkish, German an English with subtitles. Grady Harp, October 08
Between Germany and Turkey, Lives Cross Paths and Intertwine. October 24, 2008
3 out of 4 found this review helpful
"The Edge of Heaven" is a literally cross-cultural story that hinges on crossed paths between its German and Turkish characters. Deft handling of complexity and coincidence won writer/director Fatih Akin a host of awards in Europe, including Best Screenplay at Cannes, Best Direction at the German Film Awards, and Best Foreign Film at France's Cesars. Ali Aksu (Tuncel Kurtiz), a retired Turkish immigrant in Germany, invites a prostitute named Yeter (Nusel Kose), also a Turkish immigrant, to live with him. Ali's college professor son Nejat (Baki Davrak) is surprised by the arrangement but fond of Yeter. When Yeter dies, Nejat visits Turkey to find her grown daughter Ayten (Nurgut Yesilcay) with the intention of paying for her education. But Ayten's radical political activity have already compelled her to leave Turkey to seek her mother in Germany.
The film's division into four parts, only the last of which is entirely chronological, creates an interesting symmetry. The two central parts address Ali and Yeter's relationship and Ayten's relationship with a sympathetic German university student named Lotte (Patrycia Ziokowska), respectively. Two couples. But the brief opening sequence feels superfluous, as if it has been added only to balance the end of the film. Apart from that, this oddly structured film seems natural even though it relies heavily on coincidences. Two generations cross paths as well as two cultures: What Ali, Yeter, and Lotte's mother Susanne (Hanna Schygulla) want for their children is slyly compared to what Nejat, Ayten, and Lotte want for themselves. "Edge of Heaven" feels like a carefully crafted European character drama with a welcome helping of grit. In German, Turkish, and English with subtitles.
The DVD (Strand Releasing 2008): Bonus features are a theatrical trailer (1 1/2 min) and a documentary entitled "The Making of The Edge of Heaven" (56 min), which is too long but includes behind-the-scenes footage and interviews with director Fatih Akin. He discusses story, themes, cast, the script, rehearsing, and directing the film. The cast makes some brief appearances. The documentary is in German with English subtitles. The English subtitles for the documentary and for the film cannot be turned off.
Friendship and Sexuality September 18, 2008
3 out of 8 found this review helpful
"The Edge of Heaven"
Friendship and Sexuality
Amos Lassen
Universal love is the topic of Strand Releasing's new film by Faith Akin, "The Edge of Heaven". The film is overlapping tales which become a powerful narrative about the nature of love.
Six characters are brought together by circumstance. There is an older man and a prostitute who are working at a partnership, a young academic scholar who wants to reconcile his past, two young women who are in the process of falling in love, and a mother who is reclaiming her life. As Akin looks at the human condition and the world as we know it, the stories come together and we sit and are drawn toward an explosive climax.
The film is something of a political view of the problem of the Kurds and Europeans. There is a strong political and social commentary on preconceptions and stereotypes but they provide merely the setting for a story that is more personal---the opening of the soul and crossing the lines between ourselves and those who love us. Here this story is repeated three times, each in a different context.
The film is touching on many different levels and the impact on the protagonists is devastating, absorbing and overwhelming.
As Akin focuses on the Turkish-German community, we see three families who are connected in some way and by telling their stories; Akin brings issues of multiculturalism and globalization to the fore. The characters begin and end up as just ordinary people with emotions and problems. However, in the end we realize that we have seen a film about love and hope.
The story is presented in a simple, straight-forward manner and we see love from different angles as it examines Europe with her increasingly expanding borders and homogeneity. The cast is uniformly excellent and the film exudes realism. Here is a film that deserves all the praise it has received.
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