I have to say I am really glad to see Feo Aladag back to movie making. Her first feature film "When We Leave" from 2010 starring the incredibly talented Sibel Kekilli is one of my favorite directorial debuts ever. And even if I did not enjoy "Zwischen Welten" quite as much, it is still a decent movie. Aladag worked together with Judith Kaufmann again. Kaufmann was the cinematographer on "When We Leave" already and here she is also the co-writer to Aladag.

The lead performance comes from Ronald Zehrfeld as a soldier whose convictions clash with his profession. The co-lead is played convincingly by Mohsin Ahmady, even more so given the fact that Ahmady is new to acting in big movies. He pulls off an interpreter here. In one of the smaller parts we get to see Burghart Klaußner, one of my favorite German actors, who is as great to watch as always as the principle-true army superior to Zehrfeld's character, even if he doesn't have much screen time. As the film progresses, the interpreter seems to become the center more and more, always stuck between his work and the struggles with his sister. Obviously many Afghans are not too happy about him working for the evil occupation army.

One thing I liked about the ending is that it is no happy one. Aladag seems to like going for tragedy before the credits roll in and I like that too. Far too many films with forced happy endings out there, so this makes for some nice variety. Actually, the ending sucks for everybody involved. If there is one thing I did not like, it is that the colleague of Zehrfeld's character dies the very moment he neglects work. Slight lack of credibility here and realism that it had to happen that very moment. But war is never realistic I guess, so... The brother-sister plot could have been done slightly more moving. Of course you feel with them when the girl gets shot, but it is not as intense as it could have been. What I liked, however, was the scene with the watch.

I have no idea if this film will be shown in the coming years/months in foreign countries, but if it will and you like the war genre or movies about culture clashes, you could give this one a chance. I, for once, hope that Feo Aladag will take a shorter break than 4 years until her next project comes out.