HEAD-ON — *** 1/2 — Birol Unel, Sibel Kekilli; in German, with English subtitles; not rated, probable R (profanity, violence, sex, nudity); see Page W2 for theaters.
Love doesn't just hurt in the jagged German romance "Head-On"; it cuts and bleeds and even kills. A story about a lonely man and a still-lonelier woman fighting against their worlds and what often seems like their own best interests, the film has caused a stir in Germany for the murky, troubling light it sheds on the lives of the country's Turkish immigrants. Its popularity made it a fleeting social phenomenon and a minor cultural footnote. But it doesn't explain why this film about two strangers with suicidal tendencies and a deep commitment to self-aggrandizing drama is the first very good movie of this still-young year.
One of the truisms about romances, even those shaded pitch black and set to banging rock music, is that you have to fall in love with the characters when they're falling for each other. It takes a long time for Cahit (Birol Unel) and Sibel (Sibel Kekilli) to get inside each other's heads, much less anywhere else.
The couple meet in a nasty, classically punk fashion at a mental institution, where they have both landed after trying to commit suicide. Cahit drove a car into a brick wall; Sibel slit her wrists, and probably not for the first time. He is dying for a drink and likely dying from drink. Meanwhile, what Sibel needs more than anything else, more than a nip or a prescription for Zoloft, is a Turkish husband.
The only daughter in a strict German-Turkish family, Sibel has a broken nose and scarred arms and is living a life of everyday brutality.
Movingly played by both Unel and Kekilli, the couple enter the arrangement with no illusions, their relationship developing in reverse of the typical romance: They start off steeped in cynicism and doubt, and in separate beds.
"Head-On" may offend those who endorse cultural relativism, no matter how noxious its consequences, or forget that freedom from religion is as essential as freedom of religion. Filmmaker Fatih Akin's commitment to his characters is uncompromising, as is his humanity, which makes a mockery of the kind of politically correct pieties that often plague stories about cultural outsiders. Akin doesn't presume to know how to tie up religious, cultural and sexual differences in a neat package.
Despite the tears, the blood and the booze, "Head-On" is a hopeful film, if for no other reason than Cahit and Sibel can't be sized up or pinned down, their troubles filed under immigration and assimilation. Their tribulations are at once specific and universal, by turns grimly funny and darkly ironic.
"Head-On" is not rated but would probably receive an R for some violent and sexual content and strong language. Running time: 118 minutes.