Edge of Heaven, The

Aroview: Prompted by family upheaval, a university professor reconnects with his native Turkey, and other disparate lost souls, in this dramatic tapestry of coincidence, cultural divide, and ill fate.

Several expertly woven storylines, including German Cinema stalwart Hanna Schygulla as the mother of a girl entangled with a political dissident, come together through a series of telegraphed close calls – although the contrived nature of these twists shouldn’t diminish what is an assured, near-complete display of filmmaking. Several notches above the prototypical ‘fractured melodrama’, dir. Akin offsets the neatness of his German-Turkish narrative with genuine pathos and some moving, down-to-earth performances. An illuminating, never histrionic drama of rich rewards.

NZ International Film Festival 2007
Adopt-a-Movie Kindly Adopted by Christine Hewitt

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