Nostalgia for Home on Screen

Representation of Nostalgia in Abdellatif Kechiche’s The Secret of the Grain and Faith Akin’s The Edge of Heaven

Introduction

Fatih Akin is a Turkish-German film director, he was born to Turkish migrant parents in Hamburg, and his films are about the life of migrant communities, such as Turks, Greeks and Italians in Germany. Abdellatif Kechiche is a Tunisian-French film director who was born in Tunis but has lived in France since a young age and his works frequent focus is the life of migrant communities in French cities. Both The Secret of the Grain (Kechiche, 2007) and The Edge of Heaven (Akin, 2007) picture migrants who express a kind of longing, a nostalgic quality; they connect to their roots through different channels. 

Swiss physician Johannes Hofer used the term nostalgia in the late 17th century to describe the intense longing for home that Swiss soldiers felt while serving in European armies abroad (Hofer 1688). Nostalgia comes from two Greek words: nostos, which means “return home”, and algia, which means pain or “suffering”; therefore, nostalgia essentially means “homesickness” (Howell 1999). 

Nostalgia is connected to cultural heritage and migrant identity. According to scholars Morley and Robins, migrations to Western Europe since the 1960s have created diverse populations with a wide range of lifestyles and religions. Immigrants must adjust to life in a new multicultural environment, which may lead to feelings of displacement and a longing for their “old” homes, to the feeling of nostalgia (Morley and Robinson 1995, 1-10). Over time, the concept has expanded beyond its original context in space. It also encapsulates a broader sense of longing in time, a sentimentality for the past on an individual or collective level. Nostalgia often involves fond memories and a sense of warmth associated with experiences, places, or times that have passed. It often arises when people reflect on the past, recalling moments of personal significance (Boym 2002, 3-19).

Through narrative analyses and focusing on the films’ storylines, this article examines how the characters of The Secret of the Grain and The Edge of Heaven experience nostalgia, and how this sentiment influences their actions.

Theoretical framework

Cultural and Postcolonial studies serve as a starting point to better understand the nostalgic longing of migrant communities. They deal with the concepts of non-singular but hybrid identity, representing the formation of migrant identity.

The Cultural Studies scholar Stuart Hall posits that cultural identity is not a fixed essence but a process of becoming. He rejects the idea that identity is determined solely by biology, ethnicity, or heritage. Instead, he emphasises that identities are formed through ongoing interactions with social, cultural, and historical contexts. Hall introduces the concept of ‘difference’ as a key aspect of cultural identity. He argues that identities are defined in relation to others, and our understanding of who we are is shaped by how we differentiate ourselves from others. These differences can be based on factors such as race, ethnicity, gender, class, and more. Hall’s work recognises the influence of globalisation, migration, and cultural exchange in shaping identities. He discusses the idea of ‘hybridity’, which refers to blending different cultural influences. Hybrid identities emerge as individuals navigate between multiple cultural contexts, resulting in complex and diverse forms of self-identification (Hall 1990). 

According to postcolonial theory, colonised and decolonised people develop a postcolonial identity based on different ethnic, class-based and cultural interactions. Therefore, Postcolonial theory also works with similar concepts, such as ‘hybridity’ and ‘otherness’ from the perspective of colonialism. ‘Hybridity’ emphasises intermixing diverse cultural elements to form new and complex identities (Bhabha 2012). Meanwhile, ‘Otherness’ portrays individuals or groups as different from the Western cultural construct (Said 1978). Postcolonial theory helps us to understand how the colonial history of both host and origin countries shapes the experiences of migrants and their cultural identities in the present day. Although postcolonial concepts were created to describe the identity of colonised persons, the developed concepts can help discuss waves of migration into Europe and the representation of the migrants’ cultural identity because the other is not only the colonised but also the one who migrates. Migrants are forced to apply new identity trades to a certain degree, depending on their specific situation and their states’ social structure. 

Through the previously mentioned concepts, we gain deeper insights into the complexities of migrant identities, power relations, assimilation, resistance and cultural representations as portrayed in these films. However, cultural studies and postcolonial studies are theories that are too broad to understand the representation of migrants. Besides, it is important to define Akin’s and Kechiche’s film genre with a definition that can express a similarly non-fixed nature, such as the previously discussed concepts of ‘otherness’ or ‘hybridity’. While terms like migrant or diasporic cinema highlight certain aspects of the directors’ backgrounds, it can also be limiting. Fatih Akin’s and Abdellatif Kechiche’s films are not solely defined by the directors’ status as migrants or their engagement with the diaspora. The term accented cinema, coined by Hamid Naficy, is a more nuanced and appropriate label to describe their films and also serves as the chosen conceptual framework (Nacify 2001).

Accented cinema acknowledges the hybrid nature of these filmmakers’ identities. Fatih Akin is of Turkish heritage but was born and raised in Germany, while Abdellatif Kechiche is of Tunisian heritage but works in the French film industry. Their identities are not confined to a single cultural context but are shaped by the intersections of multiple cultures. The term ‘accented’ captures the blending of cultural influences, languages, and experiences that inform their filmmaking, the complexities of their cinematic narratives, and how their films navigate the interplay of identity, cultural hybridity, and the diasporic experience (Nacify 2001).

‘Accent’ in linguistic terms refers not just to pronunciation but also to the unique intonations and nuances that give depth to speech. Similarly, accented cinema suggests that these directors bring their own distinctive cultural perspectives and experiences to their filmmaking. The term accented cinema emphasises the negotiation of identity that is central to these directors’ works. The Edge of Heaven and The Secret of the Grain explore how characters navigate the complexities of belonging, cultural integration, and the tension between multiple cultural affiliations. This concept recognises the dynamic process of identity negotiation rather than relegating it to a fixed migrant or diasporic label.

Turks in Germany

Since the 1960s, Turkish immigrants and asylum seekers have become the largest minority group in Germany. Initially, many Turkish migrants came to Germany as gastarbeiter or guest workers. They were expected to stay temporarily, with no plan of becoming citizens or obtaining permanent residency. The guest workers were mostly unmarried Turkish men. Their plan was to learn technical skills and then return to their home country after two years of work. As time passed, the initial two-year contracts for Turkish workers became costly and complicated due to travel and training expenses. Therefore, their stay in Germany was extended, and eventually, they were allowed to bring their families (Prevezanos 2011). 

During the early 1970s, the global oil crisis temporarily halted immigration as there was less demand for workers. Many Turkish families already living in Germany decided to stay and build their lives there. However, even though their children were born in Germany, they were not automatically granted citizenship like their parents. It was not until the year 2000 that Germany changed its citizenship policies. Turkish immigrants and their children were then allowed to apply for German citizenship (Kilinc 2014).

Around the ‘90s, Fatih Akin and other Turkish-German film directors (like Yüksel Yavuz, Sinan Akkuş, Thomas Arslan, Neco Çelik, Züli Aladağ, Mennan Yapo) appeared in the German cinema landscape and presented transcultural issues on screen. 

Fatih Akin

Fatih Akin’s Turkish parents came to Germany in the 1960s as guest workers, and he was already born in Hamburg (Kulish 2008). Akin became a significant director in Germany and internationally with his films, which tell stories of ethnic minorities living in Germany, such as Turks, Italians and Greeks. His documentary, Thinking about Germany: We Forgot to Go Back (2003), and the feature film Solino (2002) picture first-generation migrants; Soul Kitchen and Head-On focus on the second generation, and The Edge of Heaven is a tabloid of different generations of Turks in Germany. According to Akin, Head-On and The Edge of Heaven are the first and second parts of his trilogy, “love, death, and the devil” (Roxborough 2007). 

Akin’s films diverge from the conventional gastarbeiter (“guest worker”) literature and film, which primarily revolves around the challenges faced by ethnic minorities as they integrate into German culture. In contrast, Fatih Akin’s characters are initially stereotypical Turks and other minorities, but eventually, they transform into complex, transnational identities. These characters emerge as postmodern hybrids, embracing dual cultural backgrounds. Akin’s films do not solely explore the migration experience; rather, they delve into the characters’ integration into the new culture. Through his cinema, Akin illustrates that contemporary identities are fluid rather than fixed. These identities continuously evolve as the characters constantly engage in cross-cultural interactions. Akin talks about this double cultural identity in an interview:

There is too little identification (in Turkish immigrants) with Germany itself – although this is also changing. It’s not constructive for an individual to see himself not as part of the country you were born and grew up in, and instead believe your country is somewhere else. This is creating illusions. And illusions are not something you can really hold on to. I think a lot of this is due to the fact that a lot of Turks still don’t feel as if they are welcome in Germany. They feel like second class citizens  [… ]. Even a lot of second and third generation Turks feel this way. It’s getting better though. They are identifying themselves more and more with Germany. But still it’s too little. Many are still bound to this immovable idea of Turkey and Turkishness, without realising that Turkey itself is moving (Sakalis 2015). 

The story of The Edge of Heaven

The film is divided into three parts. The first part is Yeter’s Death. Ali Aksu, a retired widower, is a Turkish immigrant living in Bremen, Germany. He meets Yeter Öztürk, a Turkish immigrant who works as a prostitute. Eventually, Ali wants to live with her and offers a monthly payment to Yeter to move in with him, and she accepts the offer. Yeter meets Ali’s son, Nejat Aksu, a German literature professor. Later, Ali gets drunk and jealous of Yeter, he hits her, and she falls dead on the floor. As a consequence, Ali ends up in prison. Nejat travels to Istanbul to find Yeter’s daughter, Ayten. While on his search, Nejat gets charmed by a German bookshop that is for sale and ends up buying it.
                  

The second part of the film is titled Lotte’s Death. Ayten, Yeter’s daughter, is part of the Turkish anti-government resistance group¹ in Istanbul. During a street riot, she picks up a gun from the floor and hides it on a rooftop. Then she flees Turkey and lands in Hamburg, where she has no home. Ayten meets Lotte, who invites Ayten to stay at her home, and they eventually become lovers. During a random traffic check, the police discover Ayten’s illegal status in Germany, and she is eventually deported to Turkey. Lotte travels to Istanbul to help Ayten and walks by Nejat’s bookstore. She ends up renting a room at his apartment. When Lotte visits Ayten in prison, Ayten asks her to get the gun she hid on a rooftop during the protest. Lotte finds the gun, but a group of street kids steal it from her. Eventually, one of the boys hoots her.

The third part of the film is titled The Edge of Heaven. Ali is released from prison and is deported to Turkey; he returns to his hometown on the coast of the Black Sea. Susanne travels to Istanbul to see where her daughter lived before she died. Eventually, she decides to follow up on Lotte’s mission and support Ayten legally. Finally, Ayten is freed from jail, and the film ends with Susanne offering Ayten to stay with her at Nejat’s house. In the final parallel montage sequence, we see Nejat arriving at Trabzon’s beach to visit his father.

The film focuses on the relationships between parents and their children, like Ali and Nejat, Yeter and Ayten, and Lotte and Susanne. The characters’ stories and the characters themselves cross each other, and sometimes, they do not even realise that their journey is overlapping. In an early scene, Nejat gives a lecture at the university, and then the camera passes by a sleeping student in the room. Later in the film, the same scene is revisited, but from a different point of view. The camera focuses on the sleeping student, who is Ayten, and the professor, Nejat, in the background. In another scene, Lotte and Ayten are in a car, looking for Ayten’s mother, Yeter. In the same shot, a tram is moving behind them, with Nejat and Yeter sitting on it. It is as if the characters consciously or unconsciously cross paths, symbolising how the stories of different generations overlap.

The representation of migrant identity and nostalgia in The Edge of Heaven

In The Edge of Heaven, Stuart Hall’s concept of cultural identity comes into play through the characters who are first or second-generation migrants. They deal with questions of cultural heritage, belonging, and integration. Their identities are not solely determined by their Turkish or German origins. The film portrays the characters’ negotiation of their identities as they move between cultures, revealing their cultural identity’s fluid and dynamic nature. 

In The Edge of Heaven, almost all the characters are in a foreign country at some point in the plot, therefore, they develop a ‘hybrid’ identity and the feeling of being the ‘other’. Yeter is a Turkish prostitute in Germany, and even when Ali invites her to live in his house, he treats her like a prostitute, not a partner. Ayten is a Turkish woman who is part of the resistance in Turkey, and then she stays illegally in Germany. She is ‘different’ in both countries. Lotte is a young German woman, an outsider in Turkey; she wanders the streets like a tourist, being easy prey for the street kids. Ali and Nejat are first and second-generation Turks living in Germany; they are more or less integrated into German society because they have lived and worked there for a long time. For them, returning to Turkey and embodying their Turkish identity again is a challenge.  There is a scene at the petrol station where Nejat does not recognise the popular singer Kazım Koyuncu on the radio. This leads the station shop’s owner to identify him as a Turkish who has not lived in Turkey for a while. Nejat missed out on popular cultural milestones; he is a bit ‘different’ in the country of his origin. Nejat is a Turkish man with a ‘Turkish accent’ in Germany and a Turkish man with a ‘German accent’ in Turkey. 

Fatih Akin’s film presents a complex narrative that intricately weaves the concept of nostalgia as a thematic thread into its exploration of identity, memory and belonging. The characters share nostalgia through culinary experiences; they keep cooking meals from their birth countries. Ali makes a Turkish meal and shares a glass of Raki with his son, and Yeter prepares a Turkish pastry. Ali embodies a kind of longing in literature; he reads a Turkish writer, Selim Özdoğan’s book, The Daughter of the Blacksmith (2005)². It is a present from Ali’s son, Nejat. Nejat navigates between German and Turkish culture. He is a Turkish immigrant teaching German literature in Germany, and then he becomes a Turkish man owning a German bookshop in Istanbul. A relevant example of cultural longing in the film is linguistic complexity. There are three languages in The Edge of Heaven: Turkish, German and English. Ali speaks Turkish to Yeter when he hears a Turkish song on her radio and realises she is also Turkish. Nejat teaches German and even speaks German with his Turkish father (and to Yeter, who briefly switches Turkish to tell him that she is a prostitute). Lotte and Ayten speak English; Susanne, Lotte’s mother, speaks English to Ayten. For them, English is like a bridge between German and Turkish. Speaking their mother tongue with each other lends a special kind of intimacy to their relationships; they feel at home while speaking their first language.  

The characters in The Edge of Heaven often experience cultural longing, which is like a vessel or link that transports them to a familiar terrain of shared memories. French historian Pierre Nora pioneered connecting memory to physical locations, to lieux de mémoire (“realms of memory”)³. These places are symbols of complex pieces of human history. Memory is connected to physical spaces; memory is also a sensory experience; a smell or a sound can also carry cultural memory (Nora 1996). Vamik Volkan, a Turkish psychologist, has a similar concept of linking phenomena, which refers to the psychological and emotional connections individuals establish between their personal experiences and broader sociopolitical events. A linking phenomenon can be a song, a smell, a gesture, or an action that connects people with the sensation of grief or joy, depending on the memory it takes them to (Volkan 1999, 173). Volkan’s concept of linking phenomena can be applied to both films because the characters experience nostalgia linked to cultural commodities, such as music, literature, and culinary art. Through these channels, the characters feel connected to their lost homeland.  In The Edge of Heaven, linking phenomena are the Turkish music (on the radio at the petrol station stop during Nejat’s journey in Turkey), the Turkish language (Ali’s Turkish book) and German literature (Nejat is a German literature professor who ends up owning a German book shop in Turkey). Furthermore, a complex sensory experience is when Yeter cries out loud that she misses her daughter. This happens when she eats a tomato from Ali’s garden. The atmosphere of a Turkish home and the taste of homegrown vegetables make her feel nostalgic for her own home and family. 

Nostalgia appears not only in the characters’ individual journeys or between the different generations but also as a collective nostalgia when a whole nation is longing for past values. In The Edge of Heaven, Ayten and her resistance group fight to restore endangered local values in a globalised time. We see Ayten as a member of the Kurdish resistance movement protesting on the street. In Turkey, engendered ethnic rivalry is a result of global power dynamics, according to scholars such as (Dixon et al. 2010). According to Ayten, a globalised market can cause human rights conflicts in between local political movements and alienate individuals from their own state. She has a heated discussion with Susanne, Lotte’s mother and states that she does not trust the European Union: “Who is leading the European Union? England, France, and Germany, and Italy, and Spain. These countries are all colonial countries. It’s globalisation, and we are fighting against that… If a country kills the people just because they think different, or look different or because they protest to have work, and energy, and schools. You have to fight back!”

The film presents global societies where all characters are constantly moving between countries. Ayten arrives from Turkey to Germany; Nejat, Lotte, and Susanne fly to Turkey from Germany, and in the end, Ayten and Ali are deported from Germany to Turkey. The characters are constantly on trams, trains, cars, and airplanes between Bremen, Hamburg, Istanbul, and Trabzon. The interplay between local and global is at the film’s centre, in the movement and connection of the main characters. A metaphoric example of this is how almost all characters from Germany and Turkey (Nejat, Lotte, Ayten and Susanne) greet the old local backgammon players in front of Nejat’s house in Istanbul at different points in the story. 

The character’s constant movement between places is amplified in the film’s title, which alludes to a metaphysical space bordering between life and death, present and past (the literal translation of the German title means ‘On the other side’). Deaths mark the narrative structure of the film; two women die. Yeter is killed by Ali, and Lotte is shot by a child. Both are accidents; both were committed unintentionally. The question of life and death is one of the main themes of the film. Nejat, in one of the final scenes, tells Susanne that as a child, he was afraid of the Biblical story of Abraham. He asked his father if he would sacrifice him if God requested him to do so. His father replied that he would rather make God his enemy in order to protect him. The recurring metaphysical questions in the film are how to balance between life and death, destiny and free will, and how to exist between traditions and modernity. This also echoes in Nejat’s lesson in the university when he cites Goethe to his students:

Goethe was opposed to revolution, not on ethical grounds but because it seemed to him to be too uncontrollable. While they create good new things, they also destroy good old ones. And he quotes: ‘Who wants to see a rose bloom in the depths of winter? Everything to its own time: leaves, buds, flowers… Only a fool could want this untimely intoxication. 

Tunisians in France 

During the 19th century, Tunisia was under French colonial rule. This period laid the base for significant interactions and movement of people between the two regions. Many Tunisians migrated to France for various reasons, including employment opportunities and trade. After World War II, France faced labour shortages due to the destruction caused by the war. To address this, the French government signed bilateral agreements with countries, including Tunisia, to bring in foreign labour to rebuild the country. Between the 1950s and 1970s, many Tunisian migrants, often from rural areas, moved to France to work in the manufacturing, construction, and mining industries. These workers were initially intended to be temporary, but many eventually settled permanently. As the labour migrants settled in France, they were joined by their families through family reunification programs. The migration patterns shifted from temporary labour migration to more permanent settlement, with subsequent generations born and raised in France. The growing Tunisian community in France faced various challenges, including integration, discrimination, and socioeconomic disparities. In the 1980s and 1990s, tensions emerged, fueled by debates over cultural identity, citizenship, and Tunisian and North African heritage assertion within French society. These tensions were often exacerbated by socio-political events, such as protests and conflicts (Brand 2006). 

Since the 1970s, directors with North African heritage have been part of the French film industry. Often focusing on characters with double cultural identities, these films were labeled beur cinema (Highbee 2013). Examples are Ali Ghanem’s film Mektoub? (1970) and Naceur Ktari’s The Ambassadors (1975), and in 1985, Mehdi Charef’s Tea in the Harem. In the 90’s, Abdellatif Kechiche became the most well-known French-Tunisian film director internationally. 

Abdellatif Kechiche

Kechiche is a migrant; he was born in Tunisia and moved to France at the age of six. His films often focus on characters navigating the complexities of migration, diaspora, and cross-cultural experiences. Kechiche gained recognition with his early film Poetical Refugee (2000). He has received critical acclaim with  Games of Love and Chance (2003), which explored the lives of teenagers from immigrant families in the Parisian suburbs. Kechiche achieved international notice with The Secret of the Grain (2007), and later, he won the Palme d’Or prize at Cannes with his film Blue is the Warmest Colour (2013), which is about the search for sexual identity in a lesbian love story. 

The Story of The Secret of the Grain

The original French title, La grain et le mulet, means “the grain and the mullet”. Grain refers to couscous, and mullet is a small type of fish; both are very popular in Tunisian cuisine and in the main character’s life. The movie centres around the character of Slimane Beiji, a Tunisian immigrant from Maghreb living in the port city of Sète, France. He was forced to leave his shipyard job and got divorced from his wife, Souad. Slimane harbours a dream of opening a restaurant specialising in North African seafood cuisine. Slimane’s family consists of his four adult children, grandchildren, his ex-wife Souad, and Slimane’s new partner, Latifa and her daughter, Rym. The special dish of the boat restaurant is planned to be fish couscous, a meal mastered by Slimane’s ex-wife for lunch every Sunday. Slimane’s children have mixed reactions to his restaurant plan; some are sceptical, and others are supportive. Slimane’s stepdaughter Rym is particularly enthusiastic about the idea and helps him navigate the bureaucratic challenges of obtaining the necessary permits and approvals for the restaurant. 

Despite challenges, setbacks, and family conflicts, the day of the restaurant’s grand opening arrives. The restaurant, La Goulette, welcomes a diverse group of customers; Slimane invites many important bureaucrats to the opening to receive a favourable decision on his loan application by impressing them with the Tunisian dishes. The family members bring the couscous, the fish, the vegetables and the sauce in huge metal barrels into the boat’s kitchen. 

The women start to heat up food and notice that the couscous is missing. The couscous barrel is in the trunk of Majid’s car, and the family cannot reach him. Slimane leaves the boat to look for his ex-wife and couscous, but on the way, he has to engage in a chase with the young local thieves. At the same time, the restaurant guests are increasingly anxious; therefore, Rhym, Slimane’s stepdaughter, decides to take their attention off the food. She whispers to the band, the lights go down and performs a luscious belly dance in traditional clothes. Her erotic and artistic performance puts the guests in a trance while her mother, Latifa sneaks off the boat to bring couscous. The restaurant’s opening is a success, and Slimane’s dream has become a reality. The restaurant becomes a symbol of family unity and a testament to preserving cultural heritage in a new land. Slimane, who had worked hard his whole life, collapses on the street; we do not know if he can still see what he had created.

The film depicts the extended family of Slimane in an almost documentary style. Long scenes of family meals with discussions from the mundane, such as diapers, to complex topics, such as the erotic quality of the Arabic language, feel extremely real. The film reflects cinema verité inspired by the Russian Dziga Vertov’s documentary theory (1925) and later developed by the French Edgar Morin and Jean Rouch (Chronicle of a Summer, 1961). According to cinema verité, the camera tries to capture the truth of a scene by being purely observational. Cinema verité works with a mix of amateur and professional actors, and improvised dialogues make the actors and the audience forget the camera’s presence (Ali Issari 1971). Kechiche highlighted his realistic approach in an interview: 

I believe I want my characters to be liked, and the best way for me to like them and to show them as they are. That’s what makes us feel close to them. We understand them. To use them to express a political position would be indecent. My films are fictions. They are scripted and made by actors and technicians. They are never simply really being filmed. But I feel sort of fascination when watching, or in some case capturing instants of reality and a major part of my approach consists of -on set anyway,- setting everything up so this life can spring forth, so we are not fabricating it, even though its an artifice, cinema (2007).

The representation of migrant identity and nostalgia in The Secret of the Grain

The couscous meal captures the characters’ connection to the North African culinary traditions, symbolising a larger cultural inheritance that transcends generations. The film’s focus on the labour of working-class characters aligns with the subaltern perspective of the migrant workforce in ex-colonialist countries. However, the characters do not identify themselves solely by their migrant status. Their conversations around the table are focused on the exploitation of the shipyard workers, childcare, the downfall of the French fishing industry, and how to fight bureaucracy to open a niche concept restaurant. These are typical conversations of the French working class, and family gatherings themselves are a recurrent topic in French art cinema (for example, Louis Malle: May Fools, 1990; Arnadu Despechin:  A Christmas Tale, 2008). 

The characters identify themselves by their ideas and social tasks within French society, not as outsiders. They are more concerned about globalization and EU policies in their French region than losing their Tunisian roots. The local fishermen’s work is endangered because the new European fishing laws regulate the shrinking fish resources. The laws identify no-fishing zones, which reduces the work area of the fisherman. Moreover, tuna, which has a high value, disappears from the French waters. Finally, some of the local fish are processed in foreign ports, taking away work opportunities from the local fishermen. These aspects of fishing harden the local fishermen’s jobs and seriously affect the local community in the harbour town of Séte. 

Slimane’s dream to open a restaurant represents his compromise between his cultural roots and the realities of his present environment. The film underscores the idea that cultural identity is not a fixed entity but is shaped by various factors, including tradition, migration, and generational perspectives. Rhym is a great example of a multicultural character. She is normally dressed as a young French woman; in the bank, she becomes an elegant businesswoman, and while belly dancing, she slips into traditional Tunisian clothes. She distracts the restaurant’s guests with her highly sexual, exotic belly dance. The representation of Rhym’s curvy sexuality contrasts with the thin, blonde French bourgeois lover of Majid. This representation aligns with the superior European view of the Middle East, but Rhym consciously embodies the oriental stereotype. She is not oppressed but consciously chooses to be seen as exotic. As Rhym slips in and out of modern French and traditional North African clothes, she willingly chooses which cultural character to embody. She is a multicultural young woman who is in control of her influence on her audience. This is a perfect example of ‘accented cinema’ where being exotic, the ‘other’ co-exists with blending in; Rhym is a French woman with a ‘Tunisian accent’. 

Kechiche’s film captures the characters’ relentless efforts to preserve cultural traditions. Couscous is more than just a meal; it is the emotional bond between family members. Souad says she made it with love. Moreover, the meticulous preparation of the couscous dish becomes a ritual, invoking nostalgia for the culinary practices of the characters’ homeland. Tunisian music, dance, and clothing are interwoven into the film’s fabric. Traditional Tunisian melodies are played in the hotel where Slimane lives and in the restaurant, while Rhym belly dances in traditional North African clothes. This reflects the characters’ willingness to uphold their cultural identity, even in a foreign setting. Several cultures and languages are represented in the film besides French and Arabic. For example, Haji’s wife and her brother are Russian. Tunisian Arabic is spoken throughout the film, emphasising the characters’ linguistic ties to their culture, but it is fully mixed with French. Mario and his wife, Lilia, are in a multicultural relationship. Lilia teaches Mario ‘I love you’ in Arabic, and while he can only speak French, he learns how to confess his love to his wife in her mother tongue. The younger generations speak French to each other, but Arabic is always mixed into the conversation at family gatherings. Culinary heritage music, dance and language are vessels of nostalgia in The Secret of the Grain. These vessels or channels can also be considered linking phenomena in Volkan’s term. Preparing the couscous meal becomes a powerful linking phenomenon in The Secret of the Grain, connecting characters’ memories and emotions to their cultural heritage. The Tunisian music, dance and clothes also act to preserve North African traditions in the French society. 

Conclusion

Fatih Akin’s movie The Edge of Heaven and Abdellatif Kechiche’s movie The Secret of the Grain explore the theme of nostalgia among migrants, but they do so in distinct ways. The Edge of Heaven follows characters of Turkish and German descent, navigating relationships between different cultures. Nostalgia emerges due to the disconnection from their cultural roots, particularly for those born or raised in Germany. The characters’ nostalgia is fueled by memories of their home country, represented through music and language. The characters in the film, particularly Yeter and Ali, experience longing for their cultural origin; they still read in Turkish or listen to Turkish songs on the radio. Nejat, a Turkish-German professor, searches for his father’s past in Turkey, attempting to reconcile his German upbringing with his Turkish heritage. All characters experience nostalgia in a different and individualistic way. 

In The Secret of the Grain, nostalgia is linked to the Tunisian diaspora’s cultural traditions. The film portrays the protagonist Slimane’s dream of opening a restaurant as an embodiment of his longing for purpose and recognition. His aspiration to create a space for North African cuisine manifests his nostalgia for his cultural roots. While Slimane’s dream resonates with nostalgia for tradition, his children have mixed reactions at the beginning, reflecting younger generations’ changing values and priorities. The film portrays how nostalgia can be a driving force for maintaining cultural practices in a new environment. Unlike The Edge of Heaven’s individualistic approach to nostalgia, The Secret of the Grain involves multiple generations actively participating together in maintaining their cultural heritage. The younger generation’s final involvement in helping Slimane achieve his dream reflects a shared nostalgia for their roots. The film portrays nostalgia not only as an individual longing but also as a collective sentiment. The family and their community share a sense of longing for their culinary traditions, forming a bond that transcends individual experiences.

In both films, nostalgia is a powerful emotional thread connecting characters to their origins. However, The Edge of Heaven focuses on the individual’s struggle with cultural identity, and it is more focused on the past and the possibility of returning to it, as the characters also visit their old homeland. Differently, The Secret of the Grain explores the collective effort to preserve cultural heritage only in the new home. Although Slimane’s son, Mijad, tries to convince him to return to Tunisia because he lost his job in France, Slimane does not follow his advice. The Edge of Heaven emphasises the negative emotional impact of displacement as the film is structured around the characters’ deaths far from their homeland. Conversely, in The Secret of the Grain, nostalgia is a driving force that serves as motivation for the characters. 

What is similar in both films is that migration is put into perspective; it is a visible aspect of globalisation. The characters struggle more with the effects of globalisation than with reconnecting with their roots. They manage to exist in double identities, speaking two or more languages and applying both new and old cultural behaviours. Living in globalised societies where multinational corporations control the job market and intern-governmental organisations rule local authorities seems hard for the working-class characters of The Secret of the Grain. The unequal access to education and compromised socio-economic rights are Ayten’s main reasons for being a political activist, and she connects these problems with globalisation in The Edge of Heaven⁴. The characters’ sensation of nostalgia does not necessarily make them wish to return to the country of their roots but to live in a society where human rights are respected locally. 

The characters of Fatih Akin’s The Edge of Heaven and Abdellatif Kechiche’s The Secret of the Grain experience longing and estrangement. These feelings are connected to their migrant statuses and the broader sociopolitical context of multiculturalism and globalisation. Both films use linking phenomenon as a channel to express nostalgia; the characters reconnect with their homeland through memories carried by tastes, images, and sounds. These are metaphorical sensory vehicles through which they travel back in time and space. 

Nostalgia can be triggered by various stimuli, such as familiar scents, music, photographs, or even specific locations; therefore, in artistic disciplines, such as literature, music, and film, nostalgia is frequently used to evoke a sense of longing and to create an emotional connection with the audience. It can serve as a powerful storytelling tool, transporting audiences to different places and eras and invoking a range of emotions, from comfort to melancholy. Movies that deal with nostalgia inevitably evoke nostalgia in the audience as well, enforcing their emotional connection to the story told. 

References

Anspach, C. K. 1934.  “Medical Dissertation on Nostalgia” by Johannes Hofer. Bulletin of the Institute of the History of Medicine, 2(6), 376–391.

Bhabha, H. K. 2012. The Location of Culture. Oxfordshire: Routledge. http://www.myilibrary.com?id=402403. Retrieved August 18, 2023.

Boym, S. 2002. The Future of Nostalgia. New York: Basic Books.

Bruni, B. 2000. Jean Rouch: Cinéma-vérité, “Chronicle of a Summer and The Human Pyramid”. Senses of Cinema, Issue 19. https://www.sensesofcinema.com/article/jean-rouch-cinema-verite-chronicle-of-a-summer-and-the-human-pyramid/ Retrieved August 18, 2023.

Criterion Collection. 2017. “Abdellatif Kechiche on The Secret of the Grain” [Video]. YouTube. URL: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G5tdERaWpn0&ab_channel=criterioncollection. Retrieved August 18, 2023.

Dixon, J. C., & Ergin, M. 2010. “Explaining Anti-Kurdish Beliefs in Turkey: Group Competition, Identity, and Globalization”. Social Science Quarterly, 91(5), 1329–1348. http://www.jstor.org/stable/42956463

Hall, S. 1990. Cultural Identity and Diaspora. Lawrence and Wishart. 

Highbee, W. 2013. Post-Beur Cinema: North-African Émigré and Maghrebi-French Filmmaking in France Since 2000. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.

Howell, W. N. 1999. ‘The poisoning of nostalgia: Commentary’. Journal of Applied Psychoanalytic Studies, 1(2), 163–167.

Issari, M. A. 1971. Cinema Verité. Michigan: Michigan State University Press.

Kilinc, N. 2014. Second-Generation Turkish-Germans Return ‘Home’: Gendered Narratives of (Re-)negotiated Identities. The University of Sussex.

Kulish, Nicolas. 2008. A Hand that Links Germans and Turks. The New York Times. URL: https://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/06/movies/awardsseason/06kuli.html?_r=2&oref=slogin.  January 6, 2008, Retrieved August 18, 2023.

Morley, D., & Robins, K. 1995. Spaces of Identity: Global Media, Electronic Landscapes, and Cultural Boundaries. London and New York: Routledge. 

Naficy, H. 2001. An Accented Cinema: Exilic and Diasporic Filmmaking. Princeton, NJ.

Nora, P. 1996. Realms of Memory: Rethinking the French Past. Columbia: Columbia University Press.

Özdoga, Selim. 2021. The Blacksmith’s Daughter: Book one of the Anatolian Blues trilogy. Germany: V&Q Books.

Prevezanos, K. 2011. “Turkish Guest Workers Transformed German Society” dw.com. October 30, 2011, Retrieved from https://www.dw.com/en/turkish-guest-workers-transformed-german-society/a-15489210. Retrieved August 19, 2023. 

Roxborough, Scott. 2007. “Dialogue with Fatih Akin”. The Hollywood Reporter. URL: https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/general-news/dialogue-fatih-akin-137001/. May 23, 2007, Retrieved August 18, 2023. 

Rutherford, J. (Ed.). 1990. Identity: Community, Culture, Difference. London: Lawrence & Wishart.

Said, E. W. 1978. Orientalism. New York: Pantheon Books.

Sakalis, Alex. 2015. “Turkey is Changing and I’m part of the Change”. OpenDemocracy. URL: https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/can-europe-make-it/armenia-interview/. April 21, 2015, Retrieved August 18, 2023.

Volkan, V. D. 1999. “Nostalgia as a linking phenomenon”. Journal of Applied Psychoanalytic Studies, 1(2), 169–179.

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 Filmography:

Akin, F. 2009. Soul Kitchen. Corazón International. Germany.

Akin, F. 2003. Thinking about Germany: We Forgot to Go Back. Corazón International. Germany.

Akin, F. 2002. Solino. Bavaria Film International. Germany.

Akin, F. 2004. Head-On. Corazón International. Germany. 

Charef, M. 1985. Tea in Harlem. CNC. France.

Desplechin, A. 2008. A Christmas Tale. Why Not Productions. France.

Ghanem, A. 1970. Mektoub? CFFP. France.

Kechiche, A. 2013. Blue is the Warmest Colour. Quat’sous Films. France.

Kechiche, A. 2000. Poetical Refugee. Quo Vadis Cinéma. France.

Kechiche, A. 2003. Games of Love and Chance. Pathé Renn Productions. France.

Ktari, N. 1976. The Ambassadors. Satpec. France.

Malle, L. 1990. May Fools. Nouvelles Éditions de Films. France.

Rouch Jean, Morin, Edgar. 1961. Chronicle of a Summer. Anatole Dauman. France

1.  It is not clarified exactly which group Ayten is part of. In the protest scene, we see different signs of Turkish left-wing politics, such as Kurdish women supporting the Kurdistan Worker’s Party and holding images of its leader, Abdullah Öcalan.
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2.   The book is about a Turkish girl who moves to Germany as a “guest worker”. 
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3.  A physical place which functions as a container for a memory (Nora, 1996). 
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4. Ayten’s political discussion with Susanne points to globalisation as one of the reasons for social problems in Turkey, she says “…it’s globalisation and we are fighting against that”. ↩︎

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