Reviews

What a thrilling ride and what a powerful one. Lead actor looks like a brutish mixture of Jagger as Ned Kelly, Morrison, Iggy Pop and Nick Cave ,and acts like a monster. Two desperate people meet each with little to lose. The chaotic, rootless life they share brings them closer as they start to realize they have only each other. You can't take your eyes off male lead Birol Unel who drinks with utter abandon. This guy has turned a passion for living into a passion for dying. The suicidal Sibel who he meets is also charming in her willingness to push every boundary in search of a life she can live that makes sense to her. She is hemmed in by traditional Turkish mores and we are shown how wives end up in that culture--honored in gesture, completely devalued in practice.

Unel in his moody majestic splendor is reminiscent of the great Klaus Kinski in Aguirre, Wrath of God. We watch him cop out over and over from facing anything like commitment to life or people. But his relationship with Sibel, born in nihilism and total scorn for convention, prods to life whatever remaining feelings he still possesses.

What I love about this film is that it has real solid characters who are people that you care a lot about; it has education about the Turkish community in Germany and by implication about Muslims in Europe; it always shows and does not tell; it has wit and provocation and is multidimensional and makes you realize there are some things worth fighting for.

My friend commented after seeing it that a quick comparison of this film with most Hollywood product shows just what pap we are accepting from LA. Yay for rage, guts, blood, love and meaning. Thanks to the creators for a film that ranks with Last Tango in its rawness and power.

If you're interested, this is exactly what a B movie looked like in 1994. It features creaky, platitudinous dialog, predictable situations and acting that is at times reminiscent of porn movies in its stiltedness. I offer this warning to save you some time. Three characters at complete loose ends with their lives meet in symbolic Death Valley--two men, one white, one black, and a pretty blonde babe who's left a picky, uptight lover behind--she's a wild spirit who carries a phallic camera. Oh, and the two men she meets are a "guinea" and a "black" and we are instructed that those groups, as everyone knows, traditionally don't get along. The ever popular motif of having the characters smoke a lot of cigarettes is used to signify existential despair, toughness,recklessness, and romance. Is this film with its paint by numbers plot barely watchable? I didn't think so by the end.

Can she Bake a cherry pie is a pointless film that perhaps was intended to be heartwarming--the coming together of an overanalytical rationalist and a confused, corny, Sixties-style lovable-airhead character, played by Karen Black. They meet in a café and start seeing each other on the day she was left by her husband, though we never learn why hubby left and it's not obvious in her character. Because we have seen lots of lovable-airhead films, the implication is that suit-and-tie husband couldn't handle her emotionality and whimsicality, yet these are not all that marked. Black's character actually seems a normal enough person (and has a fine singing voice), so we don't necessarily see why she is interesting--that is, how she is going to have to learn to grow, or how this new, badly matched partner will fit her needs. Her whole new relationship is uncomfortably suspect through the movie because it may be an impulsive rebound. The film aims to be character driven but instead is event driven; so and so happens, then the next thing in a one note plod.

The male character was dull--in fact nobody changes. One scene is poignant,where he plays back some home movies while someone's rendering of the ever-superb song "The way you look tonight" plays on top. Yet this scene does not add depth to our lead's characterization, because he is too neurotic to even imagine changing. Neuroses are, by definition, minor worries given excess emphasis, and are not deep, complex or amusing to be around. Halfway through, we know he's going to continue being his one note self.

Production values are poor with smudgy colors.