Low-paid Turkish laborers may be "a dime a dozen" in Germany, although now, with scarce employment and the government's invitations to return whence they came, their numbers are thinning; in any case, Jeanine Meerapfel's absorbing documentary portrait of just one such worker reminds us, among other things, that there is not one "typical" man or woman among them. Melek Leaves reveals the unique personality of its heroine, a 38-year-old Turkish woman who, after fourteen years in Berlin, accepts the exit visa offered her by the government. Guided by a strong will to survive, she is a woman who is not, will not be, at home anywhere, least of all in the roles we associate with Turkish womanhood. And she has challenged her filmmaker-interviewer with a wealth of images and associations from which to construct an evocative physical portrait of her world. British critic Derek Malcolm writes, "This is a very important work...sensationally true to a real life rather than one which neatly fits a filmmaker's convenient perceptions."