Berlin Calling

I found this film inspiring and despite its age, i felt it does well to come off even today in 2020 as relevant. there is a contagion about it which makes you want to keep going. if you are a recovering drug addict, suggest you don't watch this as this may want you to do those pills and sundry. otherwise rock on.

This movie deals with 2 topics I don't care much about: DJs and drug rehab. It does it so well that at the end I came out wanting to listen to the only electronic music CD I've got, and I read on a famous Psychiatry manual about amphetamines.

Music is great. So is the way it's interspersed with the story. The contrast between his "interior world" and the outside. Like when he made the psychiatrist listen to his music: it was a bit loud for her, consequently to us, so that we notice. Then when he took out his perpetual headphones, the music was gone. Music transmitted I's subjectivity, his mental states so to speak.

Characters: Ickarus is fine as a narcissistic and shallow "being" with just a gift for something. When the shrink asks him if he ever read about Buddhism (given he mentioned "reincarnation") or when he saw she wrote a book about famous artist who were also drug addicts, he just didn't care). Mathilde was barely there. I wonder if her mouth is "natural", but she's sexy enough even with that stupid Adidas outfit. Her role just lacks "something" (transmitting any feelings?), but is nevertheless believable at least. She's "his woman", but is not exactly crazy about him at all. In fact, at his first act of violence, she outright leaves. And I, as a Latin American perhaps, was surprised at how little emotions do they show to each other. She is shown crying when he had a relapse, but when sitting on a bench, she is distant, talking about her girlfriend as if she changed shoes. Then when he's out and in again at the clinic, she's not even there. Finally they're together. She dropped gorgeous Corinna. There it goes, she changed shoes again :). Beautiful Alice is right on track. His psychiatric hospital mates are fine, specially Crystal Pete. Prof. Dr. Petra Paul is gelid and coolly detached, but in her context, that's probably what they are like. She swallows insults from I. & M. like we'd take a diet Coke. We only see her really communicate with I. once, the "fly trapped on the glass" scene. Not much for somebody who's supposed to help, but her "directive" scenes, like when she is leading the "movement therapy", or when she appears in the middle of the night with the guards during I's induced mayhem are fine. She is just "efficient" at putting limits . Social Psychology: I've realized in this film I saw no feelings whatsoever. Neither family, love, friendship, nothing. Not even good sex. Yes, the menage a trois is well, but even that doesn't satisfy I. (at all). I wonder what would. Or how would he be when older. "Living of social security", like the only sound phrase he ever uttered (threw at his brother): you study at your 20s, work in your 30s and live off the state from your 40s on. I's family structure is also weird coming from a Latin American like me. His Bach loving Vater is concerned but only shows up once at the hospital, talks with the shrink after he relapsed twice in the film. He never offers him to live with him, SOMETHING, besides a "moving" hug. Same or even worse for his brother. Definitely, Germans are colder than most of us! His "social explanation" on how "the fall of the Berlin wall did harm to people" is OK for a dad but poor for a movie. If things were like that, half of Eastern Germany would be junkies :)! Philosophy: Morally, "Hungarian" Mathilde is the only "straight" character of this parallel world, without any "bad" attitude. Maybe the director/ writer's favourite? Like when Alice proposes her to be the manager of another DJ and she, predictably, and showing remarkable bad acting stills, starts to recite: "It's about Ikarus, I don't care for a job!". Surprisingly enough, a bit later she ends up working at the door of the club. Economics: Which takes me to how poor this world is. The (big) club owner asks her: "what do you want, "door or bar?". These are the only 2 jobs available, besides the DJ. How sad. The hospital, even with means and personnel that one would only dream of here in the 3rd world, is nevertheless shown like a sad barren place to be. Again, a cautionary tale, specially because it just doesn't mean to. Sociologically interesting, specially living in other parts of the world where both that and the fact that the state covered most of I. expensive treatment in private, clean cells, with only about 5 inmates in the whole facility makes me brood: even in a lunatic asylum you live better than most Third World dweller.

Everybody who is at the club is on drugs (even the owner, and, of course, the dealer). The blonde who is after Ikarus looks fine on the dance floor, but yawning in the morning when she pops up at I's home right before his big album presentation... she is the image of despair. The dealer and her look like people without anything to say, a ruin even when young. This is a nice film to show to people who think drugs are or could ever be "cool", by the way. Without being "didactic", in the sense that, for instance, he does throw away his pills and still "perform like if nothing has happened". When somebody offers you drugs, think: Do I want to be wandering inside the subway's rail, perpetually giving my money to some idiot just to be "high", then be very depressed out of nothing, and even when treated, so sleepy that I cant' tie my shoes or (untreated) think that standing up on the subway is a "trip", something that deserves a rotating camera/ "whew" feeling.

Great film! Watch it on a theatre with good sound, it surely delivers punch after punch. And I don't mean only the music.

I reckon this is not really my scene, my "hood" to put it that way. But whoever wrote this and whoever did this, they seem to know what they are trying to convey. With movies like these, it is easy to fall back onto cliches and make it easy for oneself. But this feels as authentic as it can be. The performances help too, which is not always a given with low budget movies.

Intense scenes may require you to take a moment to really digest them. But it's not just drama, there is comedy and humor in this too. Although strange humor of course. I had heard of this movie from friends before and if you are into the music especially this will elevate the whole thing even further I reckon. And of course it will deplete completely if you don't like the music too

The movie is dynamic, full of emotions and wonderful electronic music. It is definitely not a movie about Berlin party scene, Berlin is the backdrop of the movie.

Club scene is associated with drugs, but it is not a movie about drugs either. Yes the main character is a drug addict DJ who has mental issues but the movie is not Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, neither One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest.

The movie explores the life of an artist, his choices, his abysmal loneliness, creativity and above all his relations to other people.

Even though there are some occasional character zigzags, the movie wanders in our emotions in a beautiful way.

I have seen the movie during If Film Festival in Istanbul and regretted that I had missed the performance of DJ Paul Kalkbrenner ten days ago.

Nothing special about the scenario or the story in this film... But the music is something else!!! One of the best soundtracks ever!