Head-On

Aroview: Set in scungy working-class Hamburg, this constructs an unusual love story around two Turkish immigrants - a drunken janitor (Unel) and a would-be suicide (Kekilli) - who marry for the sake of convenience and as a spur to their dead-end lives.

Contracting that each will retain maximum marital freedom, Kekilli engages in a frenzy of sexual experimentation with casual pick-ups while her dishevelled husband watches on in fascination and growing unease. Framing its tale of ethnic alienation within the microcosm of an unconventional relationship, this reaps dramatic dividends with their growing emotional entanglement, only resolved through a lengthy coda in Istanbul itself.

NZ International Film Festival 2005

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