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Edge of Heaven makes us see with new eyes!
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Dec 16, 2008 |
Reviewer: Yongsoo P.
I won't bore anyone with a clunky description of the story told in this amazing film. Instead, I will give two examples of masterful filmmaking from the film.
Example #1: The iconic German actress Hanna Schygulla plays the aged mother of one of the main characters. Her daughter, a German university student with an idealistic streak, brings a Turkish woman whom she has just met, to stay in their house. The daughter wants to help the Turkish woman, who is homeless and an illegal immigrant. The mother seems to project quiet disapproval and warns the daughter about harboring an illegal alien. In this manner, the film makes the viewer think he or she is seeing a contrast between the staid mother and the bohemian rebellious daughter.
Later, however, the film reveals that this staid mother is not who the viewer has come to think she is. In her youth, she was also a free spirit and a bit of a bohemian who hitchhiked to India. She shows herself to be someone so different than who she seemed to be.
Thus, the viewer's very perception is challenged and this character is revealed to be complex and truly human and not the "type" that the viewer has pegged her to be. In other words, the film challenges and undermines the viewers' perception to provide true insight.
Example #2: The opening scene of the film is of a car driving into a gas station in rural Turkey. A man gets out of the car, asks the gas station attendant to fill it up, then goes inside to the little convenience store, where he buys some snacks and exchanges small talk with the shopkeeper about a song that is playing on the radio. The shopkeeper says the singer is from the region but died of cancer due to fallout from Chernobyl that's only revealing itself to the public now. The man pays for his stuff and the scene ends. It's a two-minute scene. No tension. No conflict. No nothing. Completely mundane. Something that could happen to anyone.
Ninety-minutes of the film later, the same scene is replayed in exactly the same form. No changes. But the film has revealed the events that have led up to this man's setting foot in that gas station. It's the same scene. The same two minutes. But now, it's filled with tension, true pathos, and an abundance of meaning.
Again, this is an example where the film shows us something, makes us think we see it, only to reveal that what we think we're seeing is not so. It challenges the expectations and perception of the viewer. It makes us see with new eyes.
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