AllMovie

The title Forty Square Meters of Germany (originally 40 M Deutschland) refers to the shabby apartment where 90% of the film takes place. Ozay Fecht stars as an impressionable Turkish girl who is taken in by the tall tales spun by migrant worker Yaman Okay. She marries Ozay and accompanies him to Germany, where she has been promised the usual indescribable wealth and gold-plated streets. Instead, her husband locks her in their apartment and refuses to let her out while he's working. Yaman deals with her tomb-like existence by peeking through her tiny window and communicating by sign language with her next-door neighbor. After indignity heaped upon indignity, the bride rebels against her husband when he suffers a stroke. Refusing to seek aid, Yaman watches her husband die, and for the first time she emerges into the German streets. She is alone, pregnant and penniless -- but free.