This isn't a film which does things by halves or relies on subtlety to make a point - it quite literally hits everything head-on.

From the very blatant head-on collision with a wall - which Cahit (Birol Unel) suffers at the beginning - we should have guessed that the young girl, Sibel, he met as a result wouldn't mean all sweetness and roses for the rest of the film.

Well, that and the fact that he met her in the psychiatric hospital where they were both being treated for attempted suicide.

And her first lines to him aren't of the regular variety: "Hi! Will you marry me?"

It turns out that they're both Turks living in Germany, he's an alcoholic mess, she's trapped by an overbearing father and brother and wants an escape route.

A marriage to a Turkish man would be accepted by her family, and somehow Cahit ends up agreeing... a few tinnies later.

The subsequent meeting between her family and Cahit and his 'uncle' (actually his best mate) offers one of the much needed humorous scenes in the film.

They live as husband and wife but purely only on paper, Cahit continues to have occasional intense - verging on violent - sex with his sort of girlfriend, who has kindly given Sibel a job in her hair salon.

For her part, Sibel enjoys her freedom, indulging in casual and meaningless sex with whoever she wants.

But it all starts to go terribly wrong when Cahit realises he's falling in love with Sibel... but is she in turn capable of returning his affections?

A jealous rage, a murder, a prison sentence, a move to another country, a rape, and a near fatal beating ensue.

A story of love and trauma... certainly not for the faint-hearted.

Vic Saggers