In Langer Gang by Yilmaz Arslan, physically handicapped people play their own lives in a gigantic concrete institution. The film is set in one of Germany’s largest rehabilitation centres which was of course built with the best of intentions, but which functions as a world in itself, a ghetto. In fictionalising reality, Arslan left out everything which has anything to do with the institution apart from the building and concentrated on the private life of several handicapped people. Arslan is himself handicapped and that probably makes it possible for him to show the naked truth of the life of the physically-challenged without resorting to compassion; without sympathy for the observer or the observed. The lack of a ‘normal’ living environment sharpens the existential problems of the handicapped. The perfect medical environment does not cater for essential matters such as safety, love or privacy. The desolate building with its long corridors (hence the title) works in the film as a metaphor for the position of the handicapped.The film has several protagonists. Nesrin, a Turkish girl in a wheelchair, looks self-assured yet she commits suicide. Didi, who seems indifferent but just cannot understand Nesrin’s problems and falls into a drugs habit. The spastic Martin, who is humiliated because of his sexual needs. And the little boy who, seeking intimacy, is a witness to events he cannot cope with. A black American girl who sings the blues in a staircase. During the night, several residents have the way of escaping the daily routine and share disconcerting and fragile moments.
