Gegen die Wand is a powerful film full of beautifully shot self destruction, desperation and violence. Cahit and Sibel meet in hospital after their failed suicide attempts. Cahit has nothing to lose after having lost the person he loved. Sibel is trying to run away from the pressures of her suffocating traditional Turkish family. Cahit is Turkish and Sibel, seeing him as a way out from her family’s grip, asks him to marry her. He agrees and a strange relationship develops between the two, now married, roommates and slowly they fall in love.

The cinematography -direct, sometimes gritty and yet never jarring- and direction -strong, daring and well-balanced- are both beautiful and gripping and complement one another perfectly. A particularly striking shot shows a free and powerful Sibel walking in the morning light in her flowing bridal gown after an unusual honeymoon night. The acting is fantastic and both Birol Ünel and Sibel Kekilli breathe reality into two tortured souls on the edge of life and make us believe their struggle to learn to live again.

Gegen die Wand is hard and raw whilst being gentle and human. Its only downfall is the lack of time dedicated to the changes which the characters live through which makes the narrative structure suffer and become a little less credible. And yet the characters never loose their vulnerable humanity, and a little imaginative legwork can fill in these gaps. Maybe the four hours of footage were a little over edited in order to fit the commercial format.