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Look in the eyes: Birol Ünel in the scene from "Gegen die Wand", which remains unforgettable
Photo: United Archives / imago images / imago stock & people
So many pictures, and they all come from a single film: How Birol Ünel as Cahit in "Gegen die Wand" gives full throttle and heads straight for the wall.
The first binge on the bus with his later lover Sibel (Sibel Kekilli).
The coke and beer excesses, the dervish dances, the three-day beard, the wild mane, the full voice, the freak out with an ashtray in the Zoe Bar on St. Pauli.
Even the ruff.
Everything immediately back and present when you think of Birol Ünel, especially now, after his death.
It is quite possible that no one had thought of this Birol Ünel for a long time.
In "Against the Wall", Fatih Akin told the story of a man and a woman who find each other because they want to end their lives and then cling to each other in a radical way.
It was the beginning of a great career for director Fatih Akin, as well as for the female lead actress Sibel Kekilli.
Ünel has also made many films, once again with Fatih Akin ("Soul Kitchen").
But not so many pictures stayed.
Anyone who stumbled out of the cinema after "Gegen die Wand" (Gegen die Wand) was disturbed and enthusiastic and waited for Ünel's next great deed, perhaps fantasized about being able to see him soon in a major character role in Martin Scorsese, who was disappointed.
But Ünel wasn't Robert De Niro, not a gifted method actor who immersed himself deeply in a role.
But someone who got the chance in this one film to stand naked and unprotected and very open in front of a camera and show his scars.
His pain.
His anger.
He was still an actor here, a gifted one at that: The role of Cahit forced Ünel from a probably painful performative act, an artistic exaggeration of presumably his own experiences.
In 2004, when the film was released, many critics interpreted Ünel's radical appearance as an expression of his own experiences as the son of migrants in Germany.
Today one would probably no longer pass this all too flat judgment.
But the fact that someone was clearly wrestling with his own inner demons, that gave this performance a force that you can never forget.
The fact that it broke all the boxes, that the viewer could no longer create a distance to it, was due to something else: this one Birol-Ünel look.
In the film, Cahit enters into a fictitious marriage with Sibel, who has also attempted suicide.
She wants to use them to break away from their strict parents and to violate the traditions.
For example, by sleeping with lots of men.
In truth, Cahit has really fallen in love with Sibel a long time ago, but of course he doesn't tell her that.
The two of them go dancing, she flirts with another, and in passing she throws him the words: "Cahit, I'm going to fuck now!"
Deeply sad and relentless
He looks after her.
Into the camera.
And at the same time past her and straight into the eyes of the audience.
This look does not allow any evasion, it is deeply sad and relentless at the same time, it keeps its secret, insists on the uniqueness of the experiences that have shaped it.
And yet it establishes common ground, recognition, including the possibility of failure.
Ünel didn't need a single sentence in this short scene.
But he created an intensity that every actor dreams of, turning this little film from Hamburg into great world cinema.
And he made himself immortal because he got so damn close to us, the audience.
Birol Ünel has now died after a serious illness.
He was 59 years old.
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