Customer Reviews

Crossing the Bridge: The Sound of Istanbul

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Having been involved in preparing the soundtrack for Fatih Akin's film "Head-On" (which I highly recommend, though if you're reading this review, you probably already know it), the bass player for the legendary German rock band Einstürzende Neubauten came back to Istanbul to further explore contemporary Turkish music, which he'd gotten a taste of and liked. The result is a fascinating musical portrait of Istanbul, including gypsy music, rap (I'm no expert, but Ceza may be doing the most interesting hip-hop ever recorded outside the US), a Canadian woman (Brenna MacGrimmon) who had fallen in love with old Istanbul whorehouse ballads and learned to sing them in flawless Turkish, Turkey's superstar Sezen Aksu, the "godfather" of "Arabesque" Orhan Gencebay, as well as Kurdish, Sufi, and street musicians. For my money, this is at least as good as "The Buena Vista Social Club" and has the potential to do for Turkish music what that film did for Cuban music, given the right marketing. And by the way, the soundtrack is also available on CD.
I'd like to take the opportunity to plug some other Turkish work that I think would be interesting for fans of "Crossing the Bridge". I am very glad to see that two films ("Vizontele"Vizontele [ NON-USA FORMAT, PAL, Reg.0 Import - Germany ] and its sequel "Vizontele Tuuba"Vizontele Tuuba [ NON-USA FORMAT, PAL, Reg.0 Import - Germany ]) by one of Turkey's leading directors and comic actors, Yilmaz Erdogan, are now available on Amazon (albeit only as imports from Germany which don't play on standard US DVD players), as well as the marvelous soundtracks to those films and other CDsBogaziçi Gösteri Sanatlari Toplulugu Vizontele Tuuba by the group Kardes Türküler, one of the best groups performing music based on the folk traditions of various Anatolian peoples (including Turks, Kurds, Armenians, Georgians, and others). This is wonderful stuff that certainly deserves a wide audience outside Turkey.

This survey of the various musical cultures of Istanbul attempts to fairly represent the enormous variety of musics in that city. It's an ambitious film that falls somewhat short, but nonetheless contains some extraordinary musical performances that make this DVD well worth buying and seeing repeatedly. I could quibble with the director over his choice to devote so much coverage to rap and heavy-metal rock musicians. The latter are especially bad, even by the standards of heavy-metal, and are basically lacking completely in any kind of musical artistry or skill. It's hard for me to comprehend how these naive and immature musical duffers could be given such a considerable amount of time in this film, which also features some truly great musical artists. The best thing for the viewer is to skip the first half of the movie and jump to the second half, where the really good stuff is. Especially strong are the performances by Selim Sesler, Brenna MacCrimmon, the great Kurdish singer Aynur, Mercan Dede, and Sezen Aksu. Unfortunately only a short amount of time was devoted to Mercan Dede, the great ney player, but he was one of the more interesting artists in the film. Aynur was certainly one of the great standouts in the film. Her performance is astoundingly beautiful and absolutely mesmerizing. Sezen Aksu is another extraordinarily beautiful singer whose performance near the end of the film is very moving. In general though the movie appears to be poorly thought out and poorly put-together. There are far too many scenes featuring the German bass-player Alexander Hacke, basically doing nothing but trying to look cool at all times, walking the streets of Istanbul or leaning out of a window overlooking the city while smoking a cigarette. Why he was a part of the filmmaking team at all is a great mystery, since he contributes nothing to the film. I would have appreciated a more serious effort to look at the deep cultural roots of Turkish music instead of this superficial survey. For example, nothing whatever is mentioned about the importance of Sufi music in Turkish musical culture. There is one very brief interview with a Sufi monk who only describes the symbolic significance of his clothes! No mention is made of the great importance of Sufi music and no Sufi music is ever played in this film. Instead the director seems to be more interested in portraying the superficial grunge of Istanbul and talking to pretentious hipsters. Still, although the movie does have a lot of weaknesses, its strong qualities are so VERY strong that it's definitely worth watching.

This is a great documentary film about music and musicians in Istanbul. All different kinds of music. Not just traditional but pop, rock, jazz, hip-hop, classical, vocals, instrumental..... and many different kinds of instruments too. Istanbul is an interesting place. It has western and eastern influence. This film is quite different from the image that you see on the cover. So, forget about the picture of the cover and just try watching. It is COOL.

Seattle

German-born Turkish director Faith Akin captures in his film the endless variety of the different styles in music and songs in Istanbul, a city that is a bridge between East and West, a city that is uniquely located on both sides of the Bosporus, in Europe and in Asia. Kurdish dirges represented by Aynur, who performs her own brand of Kurdish gospel music, passionate and melodic. We are introduced to Romany instrumentals, to Orhan Gencebay, who has been called the Elvis of Arabesque music - sounds of music are heard everywhere in the city as Faith Akin takes us into underground clubs, to the street performers, and to recording sessions. German bassist Alexander Hacke who comes to Istanbul to play and to learn about Turkish music quotes Confucius, "To understand the place, you have to listen to the music it plays". Akin's fine documentary does just that - gives us 90 minutes of music that helps to cross the bridges. For me, watching the movie was especially interesting because I recently visited Istanbul as a part of my vacation and spent four days there. The city fascinated me by its images, colors, crowds, vibrancy and visual beauty. Now, I can add the sounds of music to the ever-changing portrait of Istanbul

This movie was recommended to me by a friend. I delayed watching it for a while since I was not sure about what I would find. Watching it, I witnessed an adventurous collection of interviews, jam sessions and of course music. The adventure that I am referring is to the diverse variety of individuals and styles represented in the movie. I was stunned by some of what I saw but enjoyed every bit.

Most of the dialogue is in Turkish which is a gift for native speakers. The people, the places and the music all work together in creating a mood that is hard to describe. I liked it very much.

An unexpected surprize is the session with Sezen Aksu. She is defient, confident and outright amazing in her mastery of her art.

The last session, filmed on a boat at sunset on the Bosphorus is a gem.

I left the movie feeling like I saw way too much of German bass-player Alexander Hacke. He lurks in every scene, smoking cigarettes, playing with his hair, and just generally being self-involved, swaggering around trying his best to be a cool bassist. And as another reviewer says, he contributes nothing. A few times it even looked like he was creeping out some of the musicians.

So if you are interested purely in the music, its worthwhile. But if you are looking for a film, try one of the director's others: The Edge of Heaven and Head On are both great.

Watch it for the music, which is stunning and diverse, but try to tune out Alexander Haacke's painfully self-conscious posturing through this film, which positions him less as a narrator than a heroic soul-searching artist. Needless to say, most viewers who are looking to understand the complex and contentious tapestry of contemporary Turkish music could do without the endless scenes of Haacke pensively smoking cigarettes in his hotel room, striding down lonely avenues, and gazing across the Bosphorous at sunset. His narration adds little, and is rendered superfluous by well-edited interview footage and excellent live performances. There is a beautiful and moving film buried in this vanity-fest, and well worth picking the diamonds out of the dung.

Ok, this shows the music of contemporary Istanbul, but the case is made early on that very exciting new things were happening. Instead, we hear rap, rock, ballads just sung in Turkish with extremely inane lyrics superimposed onscreen. That said, some of the modern synthesis of old and new styles is quite hypnotic, though the best are by some of the older Turkish musicians, not the young Turks - pardon the expression - shown here. The Turk rapper is certainly fast, and we see scenes of Istanbul street life that we would not see elsewhere. Very much worth watching if you are into music.

Quite an insight to a world most Westerneres never see. Loved every minute of it from both cultural and musical viewpoint. Would highly recommend. Vendor was also great in getting item here, as advertised, on time. Good experience all around.

If you have the slightest interest in World music, or Turkish music, or a homesick expatriate or curious about life in Istanbul, you have got to see this documentary. You will be amazed to see how such variety of cultures coexist and blend their music.

Fatih Akin proves to be a very good documentary director as well as a movie director. You will see samples from Turkish Classical Music, Sezen Aksu, Roman Music, Kurdish Music, Orhan Gencebay's Arabesque, Street Music of Beyoglu and Turkish Rock.