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Sex, suicide, romantic abandon and hard rock collide in Head-On, Fatih Akin`s electrifying exploration of the changing dynamics of German-Turkish identity.
Head-On arguably belongs to a sub-genre that could be called the 'hardcore love story`, a group of films whose mood is different from that of either romance or melodrama, despite some shared themes. There is always a doomed affair at the centre of such movies, but what transforms this commonplace into something extraordinary here is Head-On`s elusive atmosphere – an affective intensity, a concentration of desire and passion conveyed with utter conviction. The 'hardcore love story` category might absorb such disparate titles as Bertolucci`s Last Tango in Paris (1972), Fassbinder`s (anti)melodrama Fear Eats the Soul (1974), Ettore Scola`s costume drama Passion of Love (1981) and Wong Kar-Wai`s Happy Together (1997). Head-On joins them less because of its storyline than because of its haunting tone.
Head-On also shuttles between cultural codes. Having grown up in Germany with Turkish parents, the protagonists seem to feel equally (not) at home in either culture, quoting freely from both their Turkish and German cultural heritages. Yet the film presents this not as a problem of non-belonging but rather as an opportunity to construct multiple belongings. Instead of portraying the experience of exile in terms of homelessness and loss, Head-On emphasises its enabling side, what Edward Said called the "plurality of vision" it offers.
                                                 Asuman Suner, Sight & Sound

Berlin ’04 – “Golden Bear” and FIPRESCI Prize
5 German Film Awards – for best film, direction, actor to Birol Unel, actress to Sibel Kekilli and cinematography
“Brothers Manaki” – “Golden Camera 300”
European Film Award for best film
“Goya” for European film
Award of American National Society of Film Critics for foreign language film