Fresh Start: Transnational and Cultural Movements of Identity in Auf der anderen Seite

Ella Shohat and Robert Stam emphasise that post structuralism and post structural film theories that
explore ethnicities are often located within the critical space of Eurocentric narratives and viewpoints
(Shohat and Stam 1995: 2001: 2006). Both authors go on to argue that the Eurocentric approaches to
cinema, which shape the production practices and criticism of European art cinema, fail to challenge the
hegemony of the narrative of the nation as a unified entity (Ibid: p 40 2006) which has come to inform and
shape critical enquiry into national cinemas. It is through this process that cinematic practice and criticism
potentially works to restrict critical debates which aim to set out a historical and geographic context for
diasporic identities signified within cultural difference. This inquiry will concentrate on how social and
cinematic discourses related to accented and diasporic cinema such as displacement, restriction and
confinement potentially combine to renegotiate traditional nationalist identities and myths and provide a
wider context for the representation of culturally different Turkish-German identities in Fatih Akins Gegen
die Wand (English title: Head On 2004) and Auf der anderen Seite (The Edge of Heaven 2007).
Alternative critical frameworks from within non Eurocentric and postcolonial approaches to cinema
(Naficy 2001: Wayne 2002) allow a reconfiguration of the concept of German-Turkish cinema in more
heterogeneous ethnically specific terms as part of a rethink of the cinematic category of German 'migrant
cinema' which can be seen as grounded within a Eurocentric discourse orientated around received Western
ideas about European 'art' cinema. This rethink of the category follows on from arguments set out by Denis
Gkturk (2002) in identifying recent changes in the representation of culturally different identities in new
German migrant cinema. Formerly, the postcolonial legacy of the Ottoman Empire and post-war
immigration (combined with state supported policies of multiculturalism) had the effect of working to limit
the potential range of cinematic representations of Turkish migrants to victim status as part of a
paternalist, sub film culture national (Burns, p127, 2009). However, the recent popularity of films which
place Turkish German Muslim identities at the centre of their narratives has been seen as part of a
resurgence of political filmmaking (Dehn, 1999), with such films gaining a firm foot-hold and a position of
importance in German film culture. Typically, earlier, social realist films such as 40 m2 Deutschland (Tevfik
Baer 1986), Lebwhohl Fremde (Tevfik Baer 1991) and Berlin in Berlin (Sinan etin 1993) all foreground
the problematic terms of integration experienced by Turkish German gastarbeiters or guest-workers as
they struggle to establish themselves in society, and have to be seen against the background of various
initiatives to promote migrant culture in Germany (Burns, 2006, p128).
Burns argues that this cinema of alterity consists largely of social problem films which define the
problems confronting the Turkish Other within a social worker ethos (Burns, 2006, p132; Berghahan,
2009). Their narratives and themes articulate a sense of moral indignation and compassion (Fenner, 2006,
p26) for marginalised guest workers, patriarchal father figures and women, who are all commonly
represented in marginalised and dislocated positions in relation to the society, and marked by social
exclusion based upon their failure to successfully integrate into a civilised and enlightened post-war
Germany (Gkturk, 2002, p249-252). However, by the post-unification period of the 1990s there was a
general recognition amongst critics that national cinema was undergoing a process of re-negotiation,
marked by the emergence of a new generation of Turkish German film makers such as Fatih Akin, Zli
Aladag and Slbiye Gnar. Akin has made a series of independent productions that focus on new
hyphenated and pluralist cultural identities which, it can be argued, is part of an overall attempt within
diasporic cinema to blur the boundaries of Otherness and therefore producing images of ethnicities that
counteract the dominant media (Halle, 2008, p145). Through combining a close reading of the films with
recent theories on Eurocentrism and diasporic-accented cinema, this enquiry aims to demonstrate how
Gegen die Wand and Auf der anderen Seite deconstructs the traditional categories between cultural
boundaries and interrogate the possibilities for the legitimate cultural incorporation and recognition of
hybrid identities offered to the Turkish German Muslim diaspora, at a time when the German coalition
government is undergoing a serious rethink of its post-war multicultural project.
Following the release of cinematic examples such as Der schone Tag (A Fine Day Arslan 2000) and Im
Juli (In July Akin 2000) Akins most recent films can be seen as a rejection of this earlier tradition, marking
the beginning of a genuinely transnational cinema in which the Turkish-German citizen is located in a
much wider range of culturally different subject positions. Following Gkturk's argument, this enquiry is

an attempt to develop greater critical recognition of hitherto marginalised Muslim diasporic identities based
on methods from within postcolonial film theory. It aims to explore the extent to which cinematic
representations of culturally different German-Turkish identities within Akin's films can be seen as the
product of a transnational intersection of class, gender and ethnicity which extensively draws upon the
codes of accented and diasporic cinema. Given the centrality of the Turkish migrant to their narratives the
use of the more specific term diasporic Turkish-German cinema can potentially allow a wider
understanding of how such transnational and hybrid cultural identities are negotiated in relation to the
social democratic consensus to register a diasporic voice that re-negotiates the power relations of
Germanys post-colonial social order. The enquiry goes on to argue that Akin's films locate its protagonists
at the centre of this cultural tension, which is played out in terms of a constant transnational movement
between different geographical spaces and allegorised as a series of psychic journeys to attain a stable and
secure sense of cultural identity. These social and cinematic discourses can be readily identified in both
Akins Gegen die Wand and Auf der anderen Seite where they are mobilised in order to articulate the
culturally different identities of the Turkish-Muslim gastarbeiter or guest worker as fluid and contradictory
and to play out contemporary social concerns around Islam which have recently intensified in official
public debate in Germany since 9/11 and The War on Terror. The period following the 9/11 attacks
reignited fears of berfremdung (foreigner infiltration) and focussed specifically on religion instead of
ethnicity to reaffirm the larger question of whether or not Muslims can be integrated into German society
(Gaebel, 2011, p19). Such concerns also find further resonance today in the contemporary social anxieties
experienced by second generation Turkish-German guest workers and in the recent controversial debate on
the social and cultural impact of the federal governments multicultural project. As the subsequent
criminalisation of Germanys Turkish diaspora has become a politically charged issue (Stehle, 2012) and a
persistent feature of Eurocentric discourses on terrorism and Islam in the post 9/11 period, these terms have
now took on new Otherised meanings with Turkish males coming under particular suspicion in terms of
posing a threat to German national security and liberal secular democracy.
Indeed, the release of these films is pertinent given that this crucial component of the German post-war
settlement the attempt to construct a multicultural society based upon social democratic principles has
recently been heavily criticised by Chancellor Angela Merkel in a speech at a conference with coalition
partners at Potsdam (16 October 2010). Merkel claimed that attempts at multiculturalism in Germany have
failed. Utterly failed and went on to argue German and foreign workers could not live happily side by side
in a speech which as symptomatic of a clearly emerging trend that has taken place over the past five years in
Germany. In the context of economic stagnation and high unemployment, criticism of Muslim communities
linked to their supposed failure to attain social and economic convergence with the nation state - the process
referred to as leitkultur - has gained an increasing degree of social legitimacy within the discourses of
Western bourgeois liberalism that inform official political policies and debate (see Mittelman 2010). This
distinct shift to the political right within government policies on immigration has also been repeated across
Europe in countries such as France, Holland and Austria, and has subtly drawn upon the ideas of far-right
nationalist parties throughout the continent1 to prompt a rethink of social democratic models of ethnic
integration and multiculturalism. This speech by the leader of the ruling centre-right CDU led coalition,
which has sought to place further onus on Germanys Muslim population to more firmly integrate into
German society, can arguably be seen as a political attempt to placate allies of the government in its more
right wing FDP and CSU sister parties. Nonetheless, this attack represents the latest and most high profile
condemnation of the German social democratic multicultural project, following hot on the heels of
comments made by Bundesbank member Thilo Sarrazin in a recently published book Deutschland Schafft
Sich Ab (Germany is Destroying Itself).
Now the highest selling non-fiction title in post-war German history, Sarrazins controversial argument sets
out an apocalyptic vision which warns of the social and economic consequences of a low national birth rate,
continued immigration and increasing poverty. It is seen as a political response constructed by the centerright to fears on the part of middle class Germans that their social and economic position is being eroded by
globalisation (Fuchs, Chakraborty and Short, 2011, p5-6). Sarrazins claims that the economic strength and
the cohesion of German national identity has been substantially undermined by post-war Muslim
immigration and the subsequent refusal of migrants to fully integrate into society has went on to gain
sympathetic support amongst sections of the general public, widespread coverage in the media and received
official backing from the main far-right political grouping The National Democratic Party (NDP). He goes
on to issue apocalyptic warnings based on the premise that indigenous German culture will be ethnically

contaminated by an encroaching Islam, that future generations will encounter a society where Turkish and
Arabic is widely spoken and aspects of Sharia Law will come to prominence as the veil and headscarf
become more commonplace. Sarrazin also argues that due to the higher fertility rates within German
migrant communities the countrys Muslim population is predicted to grow from the present figure of 4.2
million (which at present is the highest absolute and relative number of migrants from outside the EU in any
European country) to over 35 million by 2100. It is clear from Merkel and Sarrazins position of supporting
the idea of an inclusive and mono-cultural notion of citizenship that multiculturalism is conflated with an
attack on traditional notions of the homeland, while Other ethnic and cultural identities that lie outside of
the Christian-Germanic definition of the Volk are perceived as a threat to national identity and culture.
Contemporary political debate and policies on immigration and multiculturalism contrast sharply with
those within the immediate post-war era when Turkish (and Iranian) labour was considered fundamental to
national reconstruction and the sustained period of economic expansion often referred to as the economic
miracle or wirtschaftswunder. Consequently, incoming guest workers were easily absorbed by the
economic boom within its rapidly expanding industrial sector during the 1950s and 1960s, and were actively
recruited and officially encouraged to settle in Germany right up until a legitimation crisis took root within
the domestic economy by the mid 1970s. However, as guest workers immigrants fundamentally retain
foreigner or Auslnder status and have (until very recently) only been permitted to remain in the country on
a temporary basis with permanent settlement strongly discouraged as part of successive government
policies. Whereas those with Auslnder status may be permitted to live in the country with relative ease, this
does not bring about any change in national status or citizenship, although this system was relaxed slightly
with the introduction of the 1990 Foreigners Law which established a legal claim of citizenship for longterm foreign and second generation residents. Full naturalisation and citizenship is very difficult to obtain as
immigrant children remain foreigners in their place of birth and are expected to be ready to leave German
soil when requested to do so by government. This is arguably the main reason why identification with ethnic
cultures and languages was actively encouraged and facilitated within government policies. Thus, while the
absorption of (non EU) Muslims was significantly curtailed through the introduction of new legislation in
1973, 1993 and 2005 there has also been a further consolidation of Turkish-Islamic culture as the wives and
children of guest workers migrated into the country. Temporary integration or integration auf zeit has
manifestly worsened the material situation of its Muslim diaspora, locating its Turkish-German subjects at
the centre of a contradiction between the need to integrate into the social life of the host nation and the
necessity of maintaining cultural differences so although they may be born in Germany, they are not
treated as full German citizens or as welcome guests.
The concept of accented cinema (Naficy 2001) is an emerging paradigm which is particularly relevant to
the representation of Turkish-German diasporas within Akins films, which similarly draw on the codes of
first, second and third cinemas. It attempts to provide a critical methodology that explains how these
culturally heterogeneous and different identities are negotiated within accented cinema narratives as part of
a nostalgic response to diasporic experiences of displacement, exile and deterritorialization. Naficys
emphasis upon returning to a nostalgic idea of the homeland and his insistence on the importance of hybrid
identities lends the theory specific relevance to Akins films in their attempts to renegotiate the Volk and
instead recognise the diverse plurality of cultural influences that make up contemporary German-Turkish
subjectivities. Such themes and concerns can also be identified within a diverse selection of recent French
diasporic films such as Entres les murs (The Class Cantet 2008), Paradis Allez (Paradise Now Assad 2005)
and Le Havre (Kaurismki 2011) as well as contemporary British examples such as In This World
(Winterbottom 2002) and Road to Guanantemo (Winterbottom 2006) which variously attempt to interrogate
the experiences of culturally different identities within a contemporary postcolonial context. Each of these
aesthetic strategies from second and third cinemas are used to interrogate the themes and concerns
around diasporic cultural identities, often through utilising an open-ended form, direct-address and
fragmentary narrative structure. Akins films also typically incorporate flashback, voice-over narration, and
critically juxtaposed editing, while also drawing upon the discourses of first cinema through their
mobilisation of the codes of thriller and road movie. In extending the boundaries of what has been
traditionally recognised as the Deutsch Volk and redefining the psychic and ethnic territories of the
homeland, Akins films attempt to re-imagine these central principles of what constitutes German national
identity in more syncretic and expansive terms, thereby challenging the historically entrenched cultural
position of Turkey as Germanys Other.

A tension between integration and cultural difference forms the main axis of conflict and negotiation
within the narrative and social discourses of the films as characters appropriate from a range of traditions
and practices to make up hybrid cultural identities that are placed on the margins of German society. Both
Gegen die Wand and Auf der anderen Seite explore this tension through their focus on the experiences of
three culturally different and marginalised diasporic subjects that are Auslnders in Germany and three
others that alternatively engage in some form of attempt to enter Turkey to find a loved one or to
nostalgically return to their homeland. Within these examples of diasporic cinema, consistent attempts are
made to interrogate the notion of the Deutsches Volk - the central legal principle that exclusively ties
citizenship and nationality to Germanic family origins - through reworking its core idea of maintaining
distinct and separate national and cultural identities. This renegotiation of the Deutsches Volk is registered in
their use of narrative and aesthetic strategies which attempt to overcome this mutual estrangement between
national-cultural identities through fusing together the diverse ethnic and geographic spaces of Germany and
Turkey. Each of its three main stories of the latter film are interlinked with each other within a decentred
narrative structure: two of these strands focus on the death of one of its main characters (with titles
introducing; Yeters Death and Lottes Death) with another focusing on two journeys from Germany back
home to Turkey in a search for redemption and closure in relation to these deaths (The Edge of Heaven).
The public histories of diasporic groups pertaining to significant national European events are foregrounded in Auf der anderen Seite and are clearly linked with the private histories and cultural memories of
the diasporic subject, usually to highlight the structured absences of characters and their relatives who are
displaced or missing because of social conflicts within the homeland. Connections between the recent public
histories of Turkey and the private memories of characters are extensively explored at a psychic and
political level in the film through the mother and daughter figures of Yeter and Ayten ztrk. Mother and
daughter become displaced and separated from one another (literally into different narrative strands)
because of the repressive state measures deployed against Alevi and Kurdish groups during their struggles
for political recognition in the period of repressive military rule during the 1970s a painful sequence of
events which, not unlike the earlier mass genocide of Armenian Turks, the Turkish state is all too anxious to
erase from official history and cultural memory, given its maturation into a modern democratic country on
the verge of applying for EU membership. Despite their support for a secular state and acceptance of loosely
based and syncretic interpretations of Islam, Alevi Muslim sects (which are culturally specific to Turkey)
have historically experienced persecution as a minority ethnic group under the ruling Justice and
Development Party (see Aringberg-Laanatza, 1998) and now form one of the Turkish states main
oppositional movements in their struggle for political autonomy and self-determination.
This legacy of Alevi history and culture is taken up in the films themes and initially hinted at in the first
narrative strand Yeters Death as Ali Aksu, his son Nejet and Yeter sit down to a meal on the terrace one
evening as the newly formed couple discuss the end of their previous marriages. Yeter goes on to tell Ali
that her husband died in 1978 during the infamous Maras massacre indicating that she is originally from a
Kurdish Alevi cultural background, and confesses that she has taken to prostitution in order to fund her
daughter Aytens education back home. Following the massacre, in which Government supported ultra right
nationalist factions violently attacked local communities killing over 100 people on the Black Sea coast (see
Skefeld 2008), significant numbers of Alevi went on to flee Turkey and migrate to Hamburg and Bremen
where they continue to maintain a politically active presence through organisations such as Trk Isileri
Baris Birligi (The Turkish Workers Peace Union) and Yurtseverler Birligi (The Patriots Peace Union). Each
of the first two narrative strands open with establishing shots of street demonstrations celebrating Workers
Solidarity marches, in Bremen and an unnamed Turkish city on the Black Sea, as if to further reinforce the
cultural link between characters/sub-plots and political struggles across geographical spaces.
The second storyline, Lottes Death, brings about a shift in the films viewpoint to explore these concerns
more fully in relation to Yeters daughter Ayten, who is introduced as a radical left Alevi activist on a protest
march against the social and political policies of The Turkish government. It begins with the sound of a
police helicopter overhead and a high angled view of crowded streets full of protestors calling for greater
human rights and social justice. The cut to a wide view at street level reveals the demonstrators holding
placards featuring the members of their local community who have been imprisoned by the Turkish
authorities. After one participant is identified as a policeman a violent disturbance ensues and in the chaos a
hooded demonstrator picks up a discarded pistol and runs off with the police in pursuit. After the
demonstrator, now identifiable as a young woman, hides the pistol on a roof-top, armed police, acting on

information from a discarded cell phone, burst into the tenement block where she lives on a dawn raid,
leading out arrested activists into awaiting police vans, but fail to find the young woman who quietly slips
away from the area. As one girl is led out in handcuffs, she struggles with police, publicly calling out the
names of fellow compatriots who have either been imprisoned or murdered for political activities by the
Turkish state:
My name is znurznur KulckMy name is Gkce TunaI am Nurhan Erkas!
Again, explicit links are made in the sequence between the recent public history of Turkey and its brutal
repression and internal displacement of ethnic minority groups such as the Alevi and the private histories
and memories of the films central characters which are shaped by their cultural marginalisation and
difference. After escaping to Hamburg the woman meets up with two male Turkish contacts and given a
false name and identity - Gul Korkmaz - at a hostel-caf which they clandestinely run. The journey from
Turkey to Germany is motivated by her attempts to locate her mother who was last recorded to be living in
Bremen, highlighting again how the two countries are historically and culturally imbricated with one
another. It now becomes clear to the viewer that the woman is Ayten ztrk, the estranged daughter
mentioned earlier by the Turkish-German prostitute Yeter during the opening story.
It is curious that both mother and daughter as diasporic subjects also use dual names, indicating the
syncretic and bi-lingual make-up of their cultural ethnic identities as outlined in Naficys theoretical model.
In the first storyline, Yeter uses a pseudonym when entertaining clients at her home in Hamburg. When she
is first sexually propositioned by a retired widower Ali Aksu she introduces herself under the western
moniker of Jessie, only for Ali to realise that she is actually of Turkish origin and then momentarily refuse
to engage in any sexual act with Jessie/Yeter because he is ashamed of her profession which he considers
inappropriate for a woman from his own cultural background. By the same token, Ayten is told to adopt the
name Gul Korkmaz by her contacts on entering Germany so as to provide her with an alias in order to
safeguard against discovery by the government and the immigration authorities. In Jessie/Yeters case the
reason for concealing her cultural identity is later indicated to be for the purposes of avoiding persecution as
when seen sitting alone on public transport she is criticised by two Turkish males who condemn her
activities as a Muslim and a Turk before warning her to stop offering sexual services and repent. In turn,
this plot development motivates Jessie/Yeter to take-up Alis earlier offer that she live at his home in return
for payment. In the same way that Sibels family are seen to represent traditional Turkish values in Gegen
die Wand Yeters life as a Muslim woman in Bremen is constructed in highly negative terms as she
experiences oppressive patriarchal control and victimisation at the hands of Turkish males, ultimately
resulting in her death after she is attacked by Ali. The links between the two films are also cemented as
Cahit, like Ali is also sent to prison, in this case for killing one of Sibels casual lovers in what appears to be
a barbaric act based upon traditional Orientalist conceptions of Turkish masculine authority. In contrast, the
ambivalent signification of the figures of Ayten/Gul and Jessie/Yeter points toward the more fluid
negotiation of hybrid Turkish-German cultural identities within the context of contemporary European
social relations.
With the geographical shift to Hamburg, the focus of the films concerns moves away from the plight of
internally displaced ethnic minorities in Turkey to focusing upon the social experiences of newly arrived
undocumented Turkish migrants in Germany. Ayten is shown meeting Lotte Staub, an attractive young
female student from a comfortable, middle class German background who becomes sympathetic to her
plight, as the two then begin a close personal and physical relationship with Ayten agreeing to move in and
stay at Lottes mothers house much to her disapproval. This tension reaches a head in the kitchen during
breakfast when Lottes mother, Susan, asks Ayten about her cultural and political background after Ayten
confesses that she has illegal undocumented status. In the mid-shot view of the kitchen, Susan, domestically
inscribed sitting in the foreground at the table busily preparing cherries for a pie, resembles the stereotypical
image of the Swabian housewife, while Ayten stands in the background in sweat pants and top smoking a
cigarette and preparing coffee. Not proficient in each others native language they strike up a tense
conversation in English about human rights and geopolitics which highlights the contradictions in
Germanys relationship with Turkey:
Susan:
Ayten:

My daughter told me you were persecuted for political activities.

Yes. I am a member of a political resistance group in Turkey.

Susan:
And what exactly are you fighting for?
Ayten:
We are fighting for human rightsfreedom of speechand socialism. In Turkey just people
with money can get education.
Susan:
Maybe things will get better once you get into the European Union?
Ayten:
AhI dont trust the European Union.
Susan:
And why not?
Ayten:
Who is leading the European Union? England, France and Germanyand Italyand Spain.
These countries are all colonial countries. Its globalisation and we are fighting against that.
Susan:
Maybe you are a person that just likes to fight?
Ayten:
You think I am crazy? If a country kills the people, the fault, just because they think different or
look different or because they protest to have workand energy and schools. You have to fight back.
Susan:
Maybe everything will get better once you get into European Union?
Ayten:
Ah fuck the European Union, ya?
Susan:
I dont want you to talk like that in my house. You can talk like that in your house okay?
Ayten:
Okay.
Lotte concerned that Ayten is upset agrees to go away with her to try to find her mother in Bremen. After
being caught by police following a routine traffic stop, Ayten requests asylum to remain in Germany. During
the asylum hearing at the local administrative court, Aytens application is refused. An official court verdict
is then formally read out and spoken through an (unseen) voice-over pronouncing how the application does
not have any legitimacy under the German constitution. The fact that there are no racial, religious or
political grounds for allowing Ayten a right to remain points toward the highly restrictive requirements for
attaining German citizenship based upon the notion of the Deutsches Volk and rarefied claims of homeland.
The voice-over is set against a sequence in Lottes bedroom as she remonstrates with her mother concerning
the whereabouts of her passport and decision to leave Germany to try to be with Ayten. As Lotte proceeds to
frantically search for the passport and then walk away from her front door and say goodbye to Susan, the
voice-over attempts to justify the court ruling by indicating that the claim that Ayten will face persecution in
Turkey can be disregarded as the country has applied for entry into the EU and is now cultivating a
respectable human rights record.
After failing to gain help from the German consulate, Lotte is directed to BARO, an organisation set up
to provide aid for asylum cases where she is able to gain a permit for a prison visit from a sympathetic
Turkish legal adviser. She is informed that Ayten is considered by the state to be a member of an illegal
terrorist organisation and is being held in skdar Womens Prison and that she potentially faces a 15-20
year prison sentence. In a series of sequences the closed chronotope of confinement is encoded in the miseen-scene in spatial and temporal terms through the confined living quarters of the prison. Shortly afterwards
Lottes relationship with her mother breaks down when, during a telephone conversation, she says she is no
longer prepared to financially support her daughter in her attempts to bring about Aytens release. Shortly
afterwards, Lotte enters a German bookshop that specialises in left-wing literature in the centre of Istanbul,
now owned by Nejet Aksu, to post an advertisement for local accommodation, remaining oblivious to a
poster appealing for information about Yeters daughter that Nejet had earlier pinned to the notice board.
After drinking tea Nejet gets to know Lotte a little more as she reveals her reasons for being in Istanbul and
she agrees to take a flat which Nejet has for rent. At that point, when Lotte explains that she is there to help
bring about the release of her friend from prison, Nejet asks her friends name to which she replies Gl
Korkmaz with the consequence that both remain unaware they are each trying to seek out the same person.
Lotte finally gets to visit Ayten who asks her to retrieve the pistol that she hid on the roof-top at the opening
of the storyline. In an almost exact shot-by-shot sequence echoing Aytens earlier movements, Lotte seeks
out the building, climbs the stairs to find the roof-top door is locked. Exactly like Ayten did before her, she
calls on the elderly woman that allowed her friend access and retrieves the pistol. In a further ironic twist as
she is walking down a side street three young boys steal the bag containing the weapon and run off. Lotte
follows in pursuit as they try to escape through the alleyways of the town, to eventually discover them
sitting on some waste ground arguing over ownership of the package. After moving closer and confronting
them she is shot by one of the group who then leave the weapon and run off. Ayten is then taken to the
prison governors office, at which point, she initially refuses to co-operate with officials, suspecting that she
is being questioned regarding her political activities, until they reveal Lottes killing and appeal for her cooperation in resolving the matter in return for a release:

Prison Governor: Look, Im not asking you to betray anyone. I dont care about your organisation. But,
weve an international crisis on our hands. Important men from abroad are here asking questions. We are
peacefully asking for your co-operation. Yesterday afternoon you had a visit from a German citizen, and five
hours later she was found dead on the street. Why? How do you know her? If you answer our questions we
will help you. You know your sentence will be pronounced soon. Help us and use your right to repent and
you might get off free. This request can be located as part of a wider political objective on the part of the
prison governor. Namely, that there is a pressing diplomatic need to satisfy the German government and its
consulate in Istanbul regarding the suspicious circumstances behind the death of an attractive young, white
middle-class German woman on its soil. Clearly, the threat of a diplomatic incident is too high a price to pay
and has to be avoided at all costs when it potentially threatens Turkeys new found self-image and its
international reputation as a peaceful democratic society that is in the process of applying for EU
membership in the near future.
The German bookshop and adjacent flat located in Istanbul plays a significant role in all three narrative
strands in that it seems to also provide a transnational third cultural space of refuge, initially for its original
owner, a German national named Markus Obermller, Nejet and, ultimately, Susan Staub who each decide
to leave Germany for various reasons and settle down there and make it their home. Nejets decision to buy
the shop from Markus follows his decision to leave his position as a university professor in Germany to find
Yeters missing daughter and provide for her education out of remorse, after his father Ali, suspicious that
they were having an affair, inadvertently struck and killed her during a drunken rage at their home in
Bremen. This search for home or refuge seems to resolve a strong sense of placelessness within these three
central characters which is born out of a sense of nostalgia, loss and exile. As he enters the premises and
casually browses the shelves, the pace of the films narrative movement is slowed down by a long tracking
shot. The camera tracks Nejets movements inside in mid shot as Bachs Minuet in G: The Notebook, played
with a tanbur (a traditional Turkish stringed instrument) is heard in the background, indicating that a
harmonious balance between the cultural forces of the Western and Muslim enlightenments is at play within
this third space (Naficy, 2001 p213) further hinting at the films central theme of interrogating the interrelationship between Turkish and German identities. This hybridization of German and Turkish identities
through bringing together culturally different traditions of music is also used in the soundtrack of Gegen die
Wand which fuses Middle-Eastern musical styles with European electro-pop and dance formats that include
covers of familiar Depeche Mode and Sisters of Mercy chart singles in the films nightclub sequences. After
Nejet eventually wanders over to meet Markus, an unsettled and tactile figure, they proceed to sit down and
drink ay. As they sit and chat in close-up Nejet and Markus come to realise that they share a personal
desire to exchange their cultural-geographical locations of Germany and Turkey with one another (in
opposite directions) with the aim of finding a more secure sense of self:
Nejet:
Why do you want to sell such a lovely shop?
Markus: Ive been here ten years now and, all of a sudden, I find myself missing Germany and the
language as welland even though Im surrounded by it here, with all this literature. But its like a museum
here. Extinct. Like LatinAnd, Ive been feeling homesick.
Nejet:
I understand. How much would it cost?
Markus: What was your name again?
Nejet:
Nejet Aksu.
Markus: Whats your profession?
Nejet:
Im a professor of German in Germany...
Markus: That would be funny ifa Turkish professor of German from Germany ends up in a German
bookshop in Turkey. That fits.
Nejet:
Yes maybe
This theme which is set out in relation to the role of the bookshop/flat is further explored in the third
narrative strand The Edge of Heaven which centres upon Susan Staubs attempts to reconcile herself with
the death of Lotte, as well as focusing on the deportation of Ali back to Turkey and the return to his
birthplace in Trabzon following his release from prison for the killing of Yeter. Unable to come to terms
with the death of her daughter, Susan is shown as deeply upset at night in her hotel room. She meets Nejet
who then offers his condolences and agrees to a request to take her to his flat where Lotte rented a room to
collect her personal belongings. As they are seen traveling in a taxi through the busy streets of Istanbul,
Susan cant help but remark how much the city has changed since she was last there thirty years ago while

hitch-hiking to India. When Nejet gives her some time to be left alone in Lottes bedroom Susan begins to
read her daughters diary. As she settles down to read the diary, Lottes voice-over is heard narrating its
contents, and constitutes one of the typical rhetorical devices of accented cinema outlined by Naficy. Lottes
voice goes on to explain her decision to go to Turkey through drawing parallels with Susans own decision
to travel across East-West geographical-cultural boundaries on her own journey through Europe and Asia as
a young woman. After Susan meets up with Nejet they settle down to a traditional Turkish meal at a local
caf. When she proposes a toast to death Nejet agrees to allow her to stay in the flat for an indefinite
period as Susan then resolves to take on Lottes personal quest of freeing Ayten from prison as a gesture of
support and reconciliation. Susans gesture prompts Ayten to exercise her right of repentance and renounce
her involvement with the Alevi resistance movement in return for gaining an amnesty, culminating in her
eventual release from prison.
Nejet meets up with Susan as the three day Muslim festival of Bayram commences in the city. When she
learns that the festival commemorates Ibrahims sacrifice of his son Ishmael, Susan comments that it is
exactly echoed by the same story in the Bible where Abraham is asked by God to sacrifice his son Isaac in
order to prove his religious devotion, again highlighting the links between Eastern and Western cultural
traditions. As they listen to the call to prayer, Nejet then remembers being frightened by the story as a child
and asking his father whether he would sacrifice him if ordered to by God in the same way as Ibrahim.
When Susan asks what his fathers answer was, Nejet replies that he told him He would make God his
enemy in order to protect me. Nejet, then taking down the poster of Yeter, asks Susan to look after the shop
while he sets off to drive to Trabzon to reconcile with his father. Susan then invites Ayten to stay at her
home at the small town where she now lives to, in turn, reconcile herself with her late daughter Lotte.
Following Naficys argument, recollections of childhood experiences are a common feature of accented and
diasporic cinemas and often take the form of an imagined past which serves to motivate a journey of
identity (Op cite. p235) for its central characters that, in this instance, underpins Nejets decision to travel to
Trabzon and attempt to reconstruct their father/son relationship. The next sequence is an exact repeat of the
opening of the film and can be identified as one of the open chronotopes claimed by Naficy to represent a
site of transnational movement: it again begins with a distant shot of a filling station where a white saloon
car stops in the forecourt and a driver gets out asking for petrol and then goes inside the adjoining shop.
This time we recognize him as Nejet and are aware of the purposes of his journey. Inside, he is seen
wandering around browsing the shelves, as he casually strikes up a conversation with the owner about how
the music playing in the background is very popular on the Black Sea coast and how the musician recently
died of cancer from the effects of Chernobyl. Nejet continues his journey along the coast through Filyos as
the sequence on the road alternates between location shots of Turkish villages, images of the road ahead and
close-ups of him at the wheel to emphasize the visual fetishes of homeland and the past(ibid, p24). On
arrival, Nejet is informed that his father Ali is away fishing for the day. In the final shot, he is shown sitting
at the shore awaiting Alis return and, like Ayten and Susan, their reconciliation.
The narrative and thematic concerns of Auf der anderen Seite, in borrowing from the components of
accented cinema, define their central characters as alienated outsiders who have to partake in constant
transnational movement across borders and between the different geographical and cultural spaces of both
Germany and Turkey. These journeys, which work to structure the narrative, seem to offer the promise of a
fresh start for the diasporic subject, as in the examples of Nejets decision to go to Istanbul to search for
Ayten and then on to Trabzon to reconcile with his father Ali, which are motivated by his sense of self
sacrifice. Aytens decision to enter Germany as an undocumented migrant gives voice to the social
experiences of displaced internal ethnic groups in the context of an ever expanding European Union. This
narrative strand (Lottes Death) also explores the recent public histories of the Turkish nation state such as
the Maras massacre in relation to the private memories of living within the Alevi diaspora on the Black Sea
coast and in Hamburg. Ali and Lottes journeys to Turkey link into the theme of personal redemption of the
self through resettlement and function to enact a renegotiation of the culturally situated power relations
between German and Turkish identities. Such transnational movements are played out within each of the
narrative strands as psychic journeys to attain a coherent and secure sense of cultural identity that seems to
be tentatively within one's grasp. This contributes to an overall thematic-political project which is played out
in the continual movements and departures of characters across geographical spaces through repeated motifs
of travel. Long distance journeys by car are a central theme in this respect: Nejets journeys to Istanbul and
then Trabzon, and Aytens escape to Hamburg all draw heavily on the iconography of travel, signified
through widely framed, expansive landscape shots of rural villages, petrol stations, hotels and bus depots.

Ultimately, the film relocates Turkish ethnicities and diasporas at the centre of its narrative strands, drawing
upon the codes of accented cinema to articulate hybrid cultural identities within the post colonial context of
contemporary German society. Voice-over, critically juxtaposed editing and fragmented narrative are used to
reconcile the demarcations between cultural boundaries and interrogate the possibilities for legitimate
cultural incorporation offered to the Turkish-Muslim diaspora, at a time when the German coalition
government is undergoing a serious rethink of its post-war multicultural project. Use of the critical model of
accented cinema allows a critical focus on how the narrative and visual components of the film can
potentially work to transform social relations and cultural identities beyond the narrow confines imposed
within Eurocentric discourse.

Endnotes
1.

This argument is put forward by Zizek (2010) who claims that the racist discourse of extreme
nationalist groups has entered into the language of respectable public debate in Europe.

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