The Edge of Heaven again sees Fatih Akin confront the issue of Turkish identity. Following the success of his rambunctious and aptly named feature Head-On, Akin fans may be surprised to find his lens in quietened mood here, although the calm is only ever a visage. Scratch at the surface and The Edge of Heaven proves a vexed and lamenting dirge about the death of educated humanism, and a humbly sincere call for forgiveness.

Taking its cue from the Iñárritu school of tangled web filmmaking, Akin entwines three narratives like a triplet of contortionists folding themselves into a bewilderingly small box. The cast of characters represents both genders, many ages, and most social positions, although all are united by their peculiar sense of German Turkishness (or Turkish Germanness). As chance takes hold and they begin to intersect, Akin plays his crossover points for gently hushed effect, which is a relief in the face of Iñárritu’s excessively melodramatic linkages. The Edge of Heaven fits into a smaller box than Amores Perros or Babel, and it holds its pose for much, much longer.

The film begins with the story of Yeter’s death. A Turkish prostitute peddling her wares in Germany, Yeter (Nursel Kose) becomes the live-in girl of Ali (Tuncel Kurtiz), an old and querulous German based Turk. Her segment closes with surprisingly well-pitched drama, as does the following story about a young German student and a Turkish activist. Akin’s storytelling remains engrossingly inventive throughout. Like a master sculptor he strips away at any unwanted material or unnecessary exposition. When a fearsome slap signifies a character’s death, we are shown only a coffin in transit, and a man entering a jail cell. The Edge of Heaven may feel more relaxed that Head-on, but in truth its explosive material has just been better chiselled.

As the film approaches its conclusion, the bookish Nejat (Baki Davrak) – a German professor of Turkish origin – fittingly takes centre stage. A few wonderfully woven scenes (and the odd pensive look into the distance) later, and Akin seems to be offering his conclusions with typically understated panache. Early on, Yeter defends her self-prostitution; she uses the money to put her daughter through school. “Knowledge and education are human rights”, she says, and it’s a statement that holds true for the whole film. If the Edge of Heaven struggles with the truism that human beings are all basically the same and yet still manage to fight, then its answer is unpretentiously straightforward; read, it screams.

The Edge of Heaven is a falsely grandiose title. It has been translated from the more interrogative From the Other Side, which better conveys the issues at stake here of borders and landmasses, identification and fervour. Nonetheless, both demark a here and there and an us and them, which is precisely the uneducated dichotomy the film laments. If Akin is suggesting a form of assumed humanism, then it is not one that panders to sentimentality but one that appears graceful and heartfelt. OK, so that may not satisfy the hardcore politicos out there, but it works for me.

About a year ago I tried to read Orhun Pamuk’s Snow, a seminal text in terms of modern Turkey and its problematic identity. I failed. The writing was so clunky, the action so obviously representational. Pamuk’s didactic tone annoyed me immensely, and I stopped reading pretty sharpish. Akin would be appalled, of course, but I realise now that The Edge of Heaven was the film I wanted to read when I picked up Snow.