Head-On

A great german turkish movie about a strange romance. It starts with Cahit trying to kill himself by driving into a wall. You are given no reason for this and it starts with him being drunk, getting into fights and being a general asshole.

You get a hint that he has spiraled after he lost someone he loved. He ends up going to an institution where he meets Sybil. Another suicidal girl who asks him to marry her because she sees that as her way out. She is stuck with her family and they have all sorts of plans for her but she wants to be free, free to love, free to do anything she wants and free to be free. I get this as its quite similar to how girls grow up in my own culture. Their only freedom comes when they get married.

Cahit initially rejects the offer of marriage, she promises she will do everything and anything for him if he marrys her and lets her be. He agrees when she tries to kill herself in front of him. As expected the two fall in love and this kickstarts the entire shitshow.

Ultimately he ends up accidently killing a friend that Sybil slept with and he goes to jail. She goes to Turkey where she mimics what Cahit was doing at the beginning of the movie. The movie is heartbreaking and depressing. We flash forward 10 years and she has moved on and has had a child. Cahit is freed and he goes to Turkey to see her.

He asks her to run away with him bringing her child but Sybil utlimately chooses against it, choosing to stay with her boyfriend and daughter's child. Bittersweet. This is the best ending one could hope for in a movie like this but damn is depressingly.

I enjoyed the movie and wish they fleshed out much more. I think parts could have been cut out such as the stuff in Turkey. I get why they had it but I don't think it served much. You have to do a lot of work to piece together how everything is connected. We also lose Cahit as the main character halfway through the movie and we have no idea how he made it through prison.

We also don't see the ramifications of the things Sybil did, she gets raped, hooked on opium, stabbed and then presumably saved by her future lover. I wish they had gone deeper with Cahit and Sybil and their stories.