Fratricide Reviews

The age-old and sadly undying animosity between Kurds and Turks is played out on the streets of urban Germany in this bracing drama from Turkish-born filmmaker Yilmaz Arslan. Teenage Azad (Erdal Celik) is toiling away as a shepherd in the arid rocky landscape of Turkish Kurdistan when he's given the opportunity many would-be émigrés only dream of: His brother, Semo (Nurettin Celik), has sent their father a wad of U.S. dollars, enough for Azad to leave his family and join his brother in Germany where he'll hopefully make enough money to support himself and send a little home. But once he arrives in this "promised land," Azad wants nothing to do with his brother who, unbeknownst to his family, is a small-time fence and a two-bit pimp who makes his living trading in stolen goods and running a pair of Russian hookers. Instead of allowing Semo to help him any further, Azad moves into to a state sponsored co-ed home where new arrivals like himself are offered room, board and a monthly allowance. On his first day, Azad meets Ibo (Xewat Gectan), a homesick, 11-year-old boy from Kurdistan who's been orphaned by anti-Kurdish Turkish soldiers, and Azad takes him under his wing. Soon, Ibo is following Azad to the fetid men's rooms of a local Kurdish cafe where he ekes out a living as a barber. One night on the train home, Azad and Ibo run afoul of Ahmet (Oral Uyan) and his brother, the bullying sons of a local Turkish fruit seller who've become so enamored of the easy Euro they've chosen illegal dog-fighting over plain old hard work. Azard hurls an epithet at the brothers as he and Ibo leave the train, but they have the bad luck of running into Ahmet after Semo stops them on the street. When Ahmet pulls a knife and threatens Azad, Semo stabs him in the gut; Ahmet's hungry pit bull finishes her owner off. Swearing vengeance, his brother begins to search the city for the kids who know who Ahmet's killer. Ibo's opening voiceover warns us of the fate of "money chasers" who leave home to pursue wealth in faraway lands only to lose their souls in the process, but the film actually challenges such a simplistic, cautionary moral by demonstrating the fragility of that all-important concept of "homeland" particularly when it comes to the Kurdish diaspora (Azad's family are in fact homeless)and how very often the lives of the dispossessed back home depend on these soulless materialists who are lucky enough to leave home and work in Europe. Even more boldly, Arslan daringly explores the ways in which leaders of the Kurdish community-in-exile can foster their own otherness by insisting on their victimization instead of actively helping refugees. The film's opening dedication to Pasolini acknowledges Arslan's debt to Neorealism, but the gritty, documentary style is offset by a charming bit of chalkboard animation that helps lighten the mood considerably.