Head-On

An angry, sometimes brutal story of two Turkish immigrants in Germany who enter into a sham marriage that turns disastrous, Fatih Akin's Head-On introduces the "hero" Cahit (Birol Ünel) engaging in a nightlong orgy of drunken violence that ends in an apparent suicide attempt, after which he's hauled off to a psychiatric hospital, where he meets Sibel (Sibel Kekilli), a spacey young woman who badgers him into marriage so she can escape the confines of her ultra-traditional family. After the wedding, however, his new wife becomes utterly wild, flaunting her affairs with multiple partners, one of whom Cahit kills in a rage. While Cahit's in prison, Sibel returns to Turkey, where she's treated as a pariah and brutalized, but the pair are still destined to meet again. Head-On is basically a tale of two lost, wretched people saved by finding one another, but its harsh message is that the road to redemption may well be neither easy nor straight. Akin makes some miscalculations in telling the story--periodic musical numbers commenting on the narrative are more intrusive than enlightening--but overall he directs with a sure hand, and through this portrait of a single couple, manages to convey a sense of the cultural dislocation that Turkish immigrants to Europe must feel. Recommended. [Note: DVD extras include a 30-minute “making-of” featurette, 19 minutes of deleted scenes, 13 minutes of outtakes, and trailers. Bottom line: a solid extras package for a powerful foreign film.] (F. Swietek)