Victoria Fincham (Nottingham) p.40-72
2008 Issue 1
Abstract
This essay investigates the interaction between violence, sexuality, gender and the role of the family in the construction of Turkish-German identities in Kutluğ Ataman’s Lola + Bilidikid(1999), Fatih Akın’s Gegen die Wand (2004) and Anno Saul’s Kebab Connection (2005). Rob Burns argues that Turkish-German cinema is moving away from themes of oppression with a specific focus on personal experience and is instead becoming more transnational in its content and less politically and socially engaged. Jim Jordan similarly claims that the ‘between two worlds’ paradigm, which has commonly been used to describe a sense on the part of Turkish-German Gastarbeiter and their offspring of being torn between the influences of their Turkish and German cultural spheres, has become outdated and unhelpful. However, through detailed narrative and character analyses I argue that the three films examined here indicate that the formation of a Turkish German identity appears to be a far more complicated process for the youngest generation of Turkish-Germans than it has been for their predecessors. I demonstrate that the ‘between two worlds’ paradigm can still be useful in defining the generational and familial conflicts affecting this generation and suggest that the continuing importance of specifically Turkish-German social issues shows that a move towards transnational filmic identities is only in its early stages.