Respect

(Chiko (2008, Germany), written&directed by Ozgur Yildirim, with Denis Moschitto, Moritz Bleibtreu, Volkan Ozcan, Reyhan Sahin)

The first time when I heard ‘respect’ being hailed as an explicit value was three years ago. Since then I have had it mentioned by every other quasi-foreigner I happened to meet. Chiko seems to have found the recipe for earning respect: respect nobody. Either that, or be omnipotent. What makes this film interesting is not as much the ascension of its hero in the world of drug dealing, and not even the fact that there are seemingly no boundaries between criminal and ‘normal’ life (unlike La haine, Chiko shows a self-regulating environment, with not even one policeman in sight). The focus on the ‘formation’ of a successful criminal; the story of those who don’t make it to that stage, for whom power is just a boyish or drug-fuelled dream; the choice between what is right in terms of loyalty to old friends and what is right in terms of your own survival and progress – these are the things that make Chiko somewhat different from other films of its kind. Despite a handful of fairly memorable scenes, a tight script, good art direction, fast pace and generally good filmmaking, I had the feeling of something lacking, or perhaps something dragging – possibly just desensitizaton after seeing so many movies about criminals with a philosophical streak, as intelligent as a top chess player, as witty as their creator and who end up singing ‘all I want is love-love-love-love’. That many things are left hanging loose rather than being tied up into a suggestion of meaning can be anything between disappointing and refreshing (I lean towards the latter). All in all, an earnest effort and worth seeing.

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