Almost born in prison, Giwar Hajabi 's life has consisted mainly of trips back and forth to the cage where he grew up. The son of a great composer who fled war-torn Syria, Giwar Hajabi is best known in Germany as the rapper Xatar. Fatih Akin's new film Rheingold tells his story. Scheduled for release on June 28.
A young Kurdish-Iranian immigrant, Giwar is forging a thuggish character in the German city where he lives. Violence is omnipresent, and often terrifying. Fatih Akin's direction accompanies the process, touching on the genre film. But very quickly, the style evolves.
Like Martin Scorsese's best-known films, Rheingold is a fresco, the tumultuous itinerary of a street hustler who, from crime to crime, becomes a major drug trafficker. The protagonist, played with sobriety by Emilio Sakraya, lives a thousand different lives, and each time, the staging reinvents itself. It's almost as if we're watching several films in one, as Giwar Hajabi discovers new countries: Syria, France, Germany, Holland and so on.
And, as with Scorsese, the character is caught up in a spiral of violence and a vicious circle that takes him further and further into crime. His fate is"bigger than life", as improbable as it is unimaginable, and yet very real, since the film is adapted from Xatar's autobiography. His gall even becomes hilarious, as he provokes his luck and slips through the cracks every time. It's a fascinating story, all the more so when you realize that Xatar, relatively unknown in France, has become a German rap legend.
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