Polizei (1988)

Ali Ekber (Kemal Sunal) is a Turkish immigrant worker who came to Berlin as a child and works as a garbage collector. He lives in a neighborhood where Turks make up most of the population. At home, where he lives alone, he shares everything that happens to him during the day with his bird, which he calls Garip. In his spare time, he takes care of the cleaning at a Turkish theater, waiting for the day he’ll get even a small role. One day, he falls in love at first sight with Babett (Claudia Hackermesser), a German waitress who works at a café. He makes a great effort to meet her but never manages to. He even asks his friend Filinta Cemal (Yalçın Güzelce) to help him win her over, but Cemal, despite being married, is quite a womanizer and also shows an interest in Babett. Since Ali Ekber doesn’t have the courage to speak to her, he sends Cemal to approach Babett. Cemal goes to her and pretends to speak on Ali Ekber’s behalf, but things turn out very differently. Cemal tells Ali Ekber that Babett has agreed to meet him. Cemal takes Ali Ekber to places where Babett supposedly hangs out, eats and drinks for free, and makes Ali Ekber pay the bill each time. But Babett never shows up. At last, while they are waiting at another place where Babett is supposedly expected, Ali Ekber’s friends bring him a letter from Babett. Taking the letter at its word, Ali Ekber goes to the meeting place the next day with flowers and waits for hours for Babett to arrive. In fact, Cemal wrote the letter as part of his prank, and he had also enlisted his friends. They come to the place where Ali Ekber is waiting and mockingly tell him that they wrote the letter themselves. Ali Ekber stares at them in disappointment and says nothing. Heartbroken, he withdraws into himself. He goes to work but doesn’t collect any garbage, drinks constantly, and doesn’t go to the theater for days. The theater’s German director, Klaus, and the other Turkish actors love Ali Ekber. They learn what has happened to him and are deeply upset. To cheer him up, Klaus decides to give him a part on the stage he has been so eager to perform on: he will play a police officer. Klaus immediately sends word to him to come in. Ali Ekber puts on a German police uniform and appears in a small role. The play ends. Meanwhile, director Klaus asks him to go to the grocery store and buy some milk. When Ali Ekber hurries there in his police uniform, the Turkish shopkeeper doesn’t recognize him, thinks he is a real police officer, and gives him a great deal of attention. Ali Ekber then gets a brilliant idea. He cuts off his mustache at home, puts on sunglasses, and starts wearing the German police uniform whenever he goes out. He visits shops run by Turkish friends he knows; none of them recognize him, and he is treated with considerable respect. Every time, he eats for free without paying. At a wedding organized by Turks, he even stops the celebration after Germans complain about the loud music, then takes a bribe from his own friends so they can continue the wedding. He repeatedly visits the Turkish grocer who used to ignore him when he was a garbage collector. Ali Ekber takes free food and drinks from the shop and leaves without paying, as if taking revenge for the past. Swinging his baton as he strolls freely through the streets, Ali Ekber acts like a police officer and does various things to keep order. At a cassette shop he visits, he happens by chance to catch a robber, but since he isn’t a real police officer, he lets him go in a secluded spot. A group of German youths on skateboards and bicycles steal cigarettes by punching a cigarette machine a little way from the kiosk where Babett works. Ali Ekber is nearby. In front of Babett, he catches one of the fleeing youths at the last moment, takes the cigarette from him, pulls him aside, whispers something in his ear, gives the cigarette back, and lets him go. But one night he slaps a young Turkish woman because she dates and goes out with any German man who comes along. When she threatens to take him to court, he immediately runs off. Early the next morning, Ali Ekber once again hurries through the streets in his uniform. The woman he loves will soon be passing through the area on her bicycle on her way to work. The same youths, on skateboards and bicycles, block Babett’s path and won’t let her go. Just then, Ali Ekber appears, draws his gun, and frightens them; the youths quickly leave. In fact, it is a simple act he has staged to impress Babett. She runs up happily and embraces Ali Ekber, and they are now a couple. They hold hands. As they walk along the sidewalk, Ali Ekber, no longer needing the uniform, relaxes and defiantly takes off his clothes down to his trousers and throws them away. In the film’s final closing sequence, the theater stage is shown again. Behind a screen, Ali Ekber takes off his police uniform once more and walks offstage in his underwear. The actors and director laugh at this and applaud him.