Onun Haricinde, Iyiyim

Aslı is new in Berlin and works as a voice-over artist. After she records the Turkish version of the Pergamon Museum’s audio guide, the camera gazes at the famous altar, lingers on the fragment of a raised arm, on a bearded face without a nose, on a curly head of hair, on a ruffled dress of stone. The aspect ratio is smaller; the rest of the screen is black. “The friezes,” Aslı says in voiceover, “represent the battle of the gods against the Titans.” In his short film Onun Haricinde, İyiyim, Eren Aksu evokes a recent transnational movement and an older one: that of immigrants from Turkey coming to Berlin in the late 2010s and that of the friezes that were excavated in Pergamon and brought to Germany in the 19th century. Loss is unavoidable: the fact that Aslı speaks Turkish more fluently than a colleague who has been in Berlin since she was born puts the newcomer at an advantage and the local at a disadvantage. The Hercules fragments are missing from the friezes, and in the temple complex, which the film wanders through in generous, luminous wide shots in its final moments, the pieces later added to replace them stand out in gleaming bright white. (Berlinale)