Movie Review: Almanya – Willkommen in Deutschland

There is a category on Netflix that I almost never check, Germany films. There hides the adorable movie “Almanya – Willkommen in Deutschland”. The movie tells the story of Hüseyin Yilmaz, a guest-worker from Anatolia and his family. At the beginning of the movie the family is introduced to us, the viewers; Hüseyin, the head of the family who’s looking for better opportunities for his family in West-Germany; Fatma, his wife; their children Veli, Layla, Muhamed, and Ali; as well as Layla’s daughter Canan and Cenk, Ali’s and Gabi’s (Ali’s German wife) son. The story unfolds when the family sharing a meal – Fatma announces to the family about her newly acquired German citizenship. Hüseyin struggles to come to terms with his own German citizenship and reveals that he has bought a house in Turkey that he wants to renovate. In order to do so, he wants to travel to Turkey with the whole family. The up-coming trip provokes Cenk’s curiosity and leads him to ask how the family ended up in Germany in the first place. Canan tells Cenk the story of how their Grandfather came to Germany in the 1960s as the 1,000,001^st guest worker to help deal with the worker shortage in Germany. She then explains how Hüseyin brought his family to Germany.

This comedy shows us a romantic version of reality, the struggles that the family goes through along the way presented in a few funny anecdotes, some cultural differences and smart use of stereotypes. In the movie identity problems are simplified to questions such as “which soccer team I should play with at the school break?”. Even though the movie presents a pink and funny version of reality, it shows us part of German’s history. It shows us how West-Germany needed manpower in order to support the growing economy (Wirtschaftswunder), and how West-Germany invited workers from Italy, Spain, Greece, Turkey, Morocco, Portugal, Tunisia and Yugoslavia for that purpose. Although the movie skips big parts of the history of the guest-worked, it succeeds in creating a level of sympathy and understanding towards the immigrant. When the movie came out on screens in 2011 it was a huge success. The director Yasemin Samdereli managed to provoke the interest of the average German and with that perhaps even encouraged respect toward immigrants.