#13 - Crossing the Bridge

When Einstürzende Neubauten's Alex Hacke first traveled to Istanbul and heard its sound, he knew he couldn't stay away forever.  Along with director Fatih Akın, Hacke makes his return, traveling around the city and its surrounding towns with recording equipment, delving deep into the rich world of Turkish music, young and old, rich and poor, rap and rock and folk dances.  From a teenage gypsy band to an 82-year-old singer and everywhere in between, Hacke and Akın let us hear the voice of the city.

From the very beginning of Crossing the Bridge, we are thrust immediately into the teeming world of Istanbul.  This film is in your face, it is loud and raucous and doesn't apologize.  We travel with Hacke and Akın on a boat across the Bosporus, into a tiny recording studio in the basement of a tattoo parlor, and into Istanbul's slums and minority neighborhoods.  The first thing we are faced with is sensory overload.  Sound that reverberates in one's rib cage.  A dizzying panoply of sights.  Akın shows incredible skill both when focusing on tiny details - the lettering on a set list, the strings of a dulcimer - and sweeping cityscapes.  But Crossing the Bridge is also, at times, tender.  It's about the love the artists of Istanbul have for what they do, their song and dance and culture.  Akın's take is that Turkish music is all about heritage, and we see this very clearly when footage of rock gods like Erkin Koray is interspersed with young musicians talking about how the music of their childhood inspired them.

I think what really sells Crossing the Bridge for me is that for Hacke, it's also a labor of love.  Rather than be the observer, rather than be the explorer documenting an unfamiliar and exotic culture, Hacke immerses himself in the music.  He plays his bass with the bands.  He shares his love of the music with them, and they with him.  And in doing that, Hacke lets us interact too, brings us in, makes us all insiders for a little while.  As Sertab Erener sings in a Turkish-infused Madonna cover as the credits roll, "music makes the people come together" - the message of unity and shared culture isn't trite or cloying but makes sense, because on screen we are seeing everyone brought together by music.  I walked out of the theater feeling electrified, and hoping someday I could visit (or come back to?) Istanbul myself and experience these sounds anew.