Director: Cem Kaya
Movie Length: 1 hour 36 minutes
A splendid event hosted by the Goethe-Institut New York, an organization whose mission is to promote German culture. As part of their German Movie Nights series, we watched the film Aşk, Mark ve Ölüm (Love, Deutschmarks, and Death is the English title) which was directed by Cem Kaya.
This was a well-researched documentary on Turkish migrants who moved to Germany through a musical lens. After World War 2, Germany was facing a shortage of workers. In 1961, Germany and Turkey reached an agreement in which millions of Turkish workers and their families made the move. The film traces Turkish artists and songs through the decades. While an image is worth a thousand words, a song serves as a time capsule of their lives. The documentary chronicles the struggle of not fitting into the majority, and coping in a foreign country, as it intertwines with different eras of music.
While Germany is not often perceived as a country of migrants, a film like Love, Deutschmarks, and Death showcases the rich history of the past 60 years. Cem Kaya has done a tremendous job with the extensive research and its presentation. This is a documentary that everyone should watch.
Vanessa’s grade: A. It kept you captivated the whole time.
