It is a life that seems almost unbelievable that Fatih Akin deals with in “Rheingold”. The film by the cult director (“Gegen die Wand”) comes across as a rough crash course in recent migration and Middle East history. One who takes German rap with him from the noughties.
Even if the Wagnerian title “Rheingold” would never suggest it, it is an adaptation of the autobiography of the German rapper Xatar (real name Giwar Hajabi). It’s called “All or Nothing,” which fits perfectly with Akin’s (49) powerful, violent narrative.
Giwar’s parents are Kurds. The mother is a musician, the father a conductor in Iran, because of Khomeini’s fatwa against the Kurds they become freedom fighters, Giwar was born in an enclave. His first memory in the film: internment, failed escape. At some point the family settles in Bonn: the mother cleans. When the father manages to get back to the desk, he leaves the family. Giwar’s teenage years consisted of drug deals, boxing and imprisonment. He flees to Amsterdam, where a deal goes so wrong that he flees to Syria for a gold robbery. The harbor there becomes hell, in German custody he begins to record music in his cell.
If you subtract Giwar’s criminal energy and gangster attitude (fantastic: Emilio Sakraya from “4 Blocks”), what remains is the tenacity of a person who doesn’t give up.
That’s typical of Akin, who here draws attention to the life of migrants that not many people in Europe are interested in after their arrival – that before they flee.
Typical Akin is also wacky humor. Just consider that he lets an immigrant child climb into the “Ring des Nibelungen” – the proto-German tale to which “Rheingold” belongs. This fight could have been tightened up and partly allowed to speak for itself without cinematic frippery. Nevertheless: a good, wild ride.
Rheingold: D/I/NL 2022, 140 min., Director: Fatih Akin
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Source: Nachrichten
