FREE ON YOUTUBE Thomas Arslan - Geschwister (Kardsler)

FREE ON YOUTUBE (DU FINDEST DEN GANZEN FILM FREI AUF YOUTUBE) When I look at the German films in which the role of the "Turk" is awarded, the following stereotypes can be enumerated: 1. the gangster Turk, who with glittering eyes and far too much testosterone very quickly has his hand on the knife. Often this type plays the older brother who goes crazy, for example when the sister (who is usually to be married by force) doesn't run away. 2) The funny foreign Turk who makes stupid jokes with a strangely high voice and wrong grammar. 3. the victim Turk who does not want to wear a headscarf and also does not marry. Often she is rejected by the (before still cosy) father and chased by the gangster Turk brother. Of course, Thomas Arslan is annoyed about this and wants to show "real" Turks! Erol (Tamer Yigit), Leyla (Serpil Turhan) and Ahmed (Savas Yurderi) are siblings from Kreuzberg. They all come from a Turkish family, with their mother being German. Erol is a little gangster and fence who dropped out of school. But now he has trouble with his "scene" and also with the police. He wants to leave Germany to do his military service in Turkey. He believes that this is the only way to get his life back on track. Leyla tries to escape the confinement of the family. She is at the age when her best friend is the most important person in the world. That's why she spends most of her time with her friend Sevim and would love to move in with her. Unlike Erol, Ahmed has no desire for the street scene around the Kottbusser Tor. He wants to graduate and then study. That's why Ahmed and Erol keep getting into each other's throats. At Kottbusser Tor, Ahmed takes the position of someone you know from childhood, but who is now different. We also hear the parents talking about what is Turkish and what is German? How does a Turkish-German family work at all? Thomas Arslan himself comes from such a family with a German mother and a Turkish father. Apparently he also knows the area around the Kottbusser Tor quite well. He has studied in Berlin since 1986; his debut is as a sibling. Fortunately, Arslan is not an educational filmmaker. He doesn't try hard to tell a story either. Instead, this unpretentious sketch just slips out. By the way, I didn't get the impression that hanging out and wandering around at Kotti was a bad thing in the film. Arslan's movie is also quite often very funny. This works because siblings are staged in "youth language", but in one that is really spoken that way. More precisely: The film was spoken, because it was made in 1997. Arslan, a worthy successor to the Nouvelle Vague, also leaves enough room for me not only to look at his family, but also to take a look at the milieu behind it: Somehow the Kottbusser Tor in Geschwister seems much more harmonious to me than it is today. Or am I suffering from a symptom of old age? By the way, siblings have also become one of my favourite Berlin films.