Sometimes you gotta buck the crowd

It’s always hard to hold an opinion counter to the crowd. In cliché terms, of course, that might mean it’s hard to swim against the current, stand straight in a blowing wind or avoid being sucked down by a flushing toilet.

That latter-most cliché is often the fitting when it comes to the appraisal of art. Serrano’s Piss Christ, anyone?

Toilet water isn’t necessarily the most apt metaphor to bring up when talking about the 2004 film “Head-On” (or “Gegen die Wand” in German), Turkish-German filmmaker Fatih Akin’s film about two damaged souls trekking through the realm of self-destruction in modern-day Hamburg.

I saw the film courtesy of Netflix last night, and I was a bit excited because, one, I had enjoyed Akin’s 2007 film “The Edge of Heaven” and, two, after checking I had discovered that the movie enjoyed a 96 percent positive rating on Rotten Tomatoes (27 critics rated it fresh, one rotten).

Here are some of the remarks:

“A major artistic breakthrough.” Wesley Morris, Boston Globe.

“It’s an arresting new work by an obviously gifted and commanding filmmaker.” Michael Wilmington, Chicago Tribune.

“Impeccably made, uncompromising in its implacable vision of the deranging power of love, sex and controlled substances, this savage and staggering film knows how to take our breath away.” Kenneth Turan, Los Angeles Times.

Uh, OK. The film is about two Turkish-Germans. Cahit is 45 or so, Sibel barely 21. They meet in a hospital where both are recovering from suicide attempts. He is a wastrel, a drug-abusing, drunken, self-professed “bum” whose self-destructive tendencies seem to be linked to his dead wife – but that is never made clear.

She is an attractive, party-hearty daughter of a strict family who just wants to have fun. But in her culture, if she doesn’t toe the line, she’s likely to get killed. So she tries to do the job herself – and gets threatened by her brother anyway.

When Sibel proposes marriage as a way for her to escape, kind of like the false marriages that allow one to earn foreign citizenship, Cahit is reluctant (understandably, I’d say). But he finally gives in. And the rollercoaster begins.

At first unaffected by each other, they begin to fall into … what, mutual need, unrequited lust, dare we say love? His problem is that he actually begins to fall for this weird party girl, while she finds her sense of affection beginning to turn into something else – which is complicated by the fact that, in her heart, she is still affected by the traditional notions of her culture regarding, you guessed it, marriage.

Bad stuff happens, all of which leads to an ending that while not exactly predictable is hardly surprising. No one’s gonna end up happy.

So, yes, I agree with those who say that “Head-On” signals the arrival of a talented filmmaker. And I was impressed by the performances, especially by Sibel Kekilli as Sibel.

But does “Head-On” boast a fully realized screenplay, one bearing the cutting edge of originality and power? I don’t think so.

So my opinion is more like the lone Rotten Tomatoes holdout, the Village Voice’s J. Hoberman: “In an odd spin on the immigration story, rootless Cahit and Sibel are ultimately too complex for the fiction that holds them.”