Almanya-Almanya – Willkommen in Deutschland (2011)

Directed by: Yasemin Samdereli | 97 minutes | drama, comedy | Actors: Fahri Ögün Yardim, Demet Gül, Vedat Erincin, Lilay Huser, Denis Moschitto, Petra Schmidt-Schaller, Aylin Tezel, Rafael Koussouris

Hüseyin Yilmaz is the masculine mustachioed heart of ‘Almanya’. In the mid-sixties he emigrated alone from the Turkish hinterland to Wirtschaftswunder Germany. He crosses the border anonymously, as a million-and-one guest worker. With his Buster Keaton eyes, the young Hüseyin (Fahri Ögün Yardim) is reminiscent of an innocent version of Vito Corleone. In ‘The Godfather – Part II’ he traveled from Sicily to New York. And just as the drama in The Godfather trilogy led to comparisons with opera, family chronicle ‘Almanya’ gives the impression of an operetta.

‘Almanya’ starts in 2009. The now retired Hüseyin (Vedat Erincin), now grandfather and German citizen, gathers his family around him. He tells that he has bought a house in his Anatolian hometown. Or if everyone wants to travel with him to fix it up. Consternation abounds among his westernized children and grandchildren. Youngest grandson Çenk (Rafael Koussouris) doesn’t understand it at all. Ever since he discovered at school that his family’s hometown is off the map of Europe, he has been in a pre-pubescent identity crisis. His older cousin Çanan (Aylin Tezel) decides to tell him about Grandpa’s history. From the first shy smile Grandma gave to Grandpa, to Grandpa’s flight from the dusty hamlet where he grew up and the moment he can give his first salary in Deutsche Mark a blissful kiss.

Astonished as a Turkish Forrest Gump, Gastarbeiter Hüseyin moves through his new environment. Çanan’s long review of his life cuts through the journey to Turkey that the family is now embarking on with fresh reluctance. She also struggles with the discovery that she is pregnant. “What did your sperm do?!” anan throws her English friend in panic. The lyrics in quasi-comedy ‘Almanya’ don’t get much more sophisticated, by the way. Dialogues here function as woodenly played out one-twos to bring each scene closer to the goal. “But if my actors grin in every shot, the audience will naturally be happy,” director Yasemin Samdereli may have hoped. The characters in ‘Almanya’ know the subtlety of slapstick anyway. Watch the son hold his pee while mom scrubs the toilet bowl. It goes from grand gestures, home quickly and what goes with it is high-pile plucked music in combination with a growl of a tuba.

‘Almanya’ was clearly not made as an addition to the cinema that fathoms ‘migrant life’ with a cynical and critical eye. (Despite a scene in which Canan rebukes two clichéd xenophobic elderly people.) The film cheerfully opts for deep rose-colored glasses: emigration is not so much about poverty as it is about love (for Coca-Cola or not). The symbolism used to represent the cultural or generation gap is as refined as a Bavarian church bell. Those choices have their charm here and there. In a simple yet effective way, the film succeeds in presenting Germany as a foreign country, with strange customs and strange people – also for a ‘Northern European’ viewer. The villagers of young Fatma (Demet Gül) warned her when she was about to follow Hüseyin: “Germany is cold, Germany is dirty, and they only eat potatoes.”