Moi, Christiane F., 13 ans, droguée, prostituée...

I really wasn't prepared for this film, or was I? I had been recommended it, and told it was disturbing, but it certainly had a massive effect on me.

Christiane F is the true story of a girl who gets seduced by the German nightlife and David Bowie, and slowly drifts onto heroin.

There are several disturbing parts of this movie. The heroin/prostitution scenes are disturbing, but I didn't get disturbed by these as much as I did the story. The media would have us believe that heroin users and dealers are monsters and don't have a right to live. The people in this movie are real, and easy to identify with.

I definitely recommend this movie, and compared to Trainspotting (a film I also enjoyed) is much more realistic.

"Christiane F." is a bleak, harrowing look at drug abuse among Berlin youth in the 1970s.

It is perhaps the grittiest look at addiction I've ever seen on film.

The only problem is that you never really get close to the characters. You get close to what they do - and what the people around them do - but you never feel like you know the main character that well.

Part of the power of the movie comes from the casting of an actress who looks every bit as young as the character she's playing. You see her come precariously close to danger so many times, but the movie would be much more gripping if we were able to get closer to her.

The movie has many nauseating scenes of drug use and the sickness that results from it. I couldn't help thinking that this would be a good movie to show to kids to turn them off drugs. I actually felt physically ill while watching parts of it.

I watched this movie out of sheer coincidence thanks to IMDb. Two days back I watched "Requiem for a Dream" and today after watching this movie, I felt "Requiem-." was a joke.

This is an open letter to Natja Brunckhorst, who has performed a role I have never ever seen on celluloid before and maybe I might not even see it in the many years to come. Surprising she didn't get an Oscar for her role.

The movie transported me to an era 30 years back and I in fact felt like one of the characters in the movie. The real fickle mindedness of teens has been shown in an extremely realistic way.

All the characters are well developed and there are many scenes in the movie which can send you tear gland's to work. The film has a mystic element in it which I have never experienced before. The soundtrack is perfect especially the music which comes to the end of the movie sends a chill through one's spine.

Watch this movie, if you like watching movies which have strong emotional content in them otherwise let it go as this master piece cannot be spoken low of.

The movies after effects are still on me and I myself feel drugged watching this movie. A perfect 10 and no other movie can be compared to this one!

Cheers!

I have seen so many films about drug addiction, and not one of them can equal the sheer power of this one. The life of this 14 year old West Berlin junkie is crafted with an astounding level of realism. Her downward spiral into heroin addiction and prostitution is captured by Ulrich Edel, who holds nothing back in his depiction. We see through Christiane's eyes, every filthy toilet, every creepy, slimy john whom she must trick with for drug money, every moment of terror and desperation. At this age, everything is felt so intensely. Christiane, a young teenager from a "hell on Earth" place called Gropistadt, a truly dark and bleak part of Neukoln, West Berlin. A place where there is absolutely nothing for a teenager to do. She discovers a place called "The Sound", a cavernous disco located near the posh and touristy "Kurfuerstendamm". "The Sound" is a seedy teen hangout, infested with drugs, and with dealers only too happy to feed Valium and heroin to kids eager to escape their dreary reality and to have fun. Here is where Christiane meets Detlef, a boy her age. Detlef starts using heroin soon after they meet, and Christiane, scared of losing him to the drug, begins using also. It is especially important to notice that the film doesn't glamorize heroin. As soon as the hard drug use begins, the mood of the film changes instantly. The wonderful music of David Bowie whom Christiane worships is heard frequently throughout the first section of the film. After her and her friends become junkies, the Bowie music disappears, which is very symbolic, i think. Thankfully director Edel didn't make the mistake that so many American directors make when filming stories about teens: The actors here are genuine teenagers, around 14/15 years old. This makes the film so much more powerful and shocking, and much more believable. The effects of heroin on these kids is staggering to behold; they turn into these sickly shadows of their former selves, like zombies, in search of their next fix. And strangely, Christiane and her friends never seem to enjoy the high from the heroin. You will never see such a bleak vision of kids lost in a surreal hell of drug addiction. And to add further to the intensity, the film is long, 138 minutes uncut, becoming steadily darker and seedier by the minute, until the viewer wonders just how long can this young girl go on like this without completely self-destructing. And amazingly, throughout the running time, the film never preaches, not for a moment. And it never becomes sentimental, as most American drug films often do. The film style is specifically German. I doubt that any American director could have created such a dark and gritty film about people so young. "Christiane F: Wir Kinder vom Bahnhof Zoo" remains one of the most well-known and admired films to ever come out of Germany.

This powerful and shocking movie is an adaption from the bestselling book based on the true story of Christiane F. Having lived in Berlin until the mid 80's and being the same age as Christiane F. I can only stress the authencity of both book and movie. Berlin was a dark and depressing city at the time, yet a true metropolis with all its problems. You didn't have to be part of the "drug scene" to notice it everywhere in the downtown and surrounding area. Strung out junkies hitting you up for money in subway stations, streetwalkers, prostitutes at the Bahnhof Zoo ... the magazine article, followed by the book and movie just kind of brought it out in the open and documented the problem. The movie is still relevant 20 years later, one just have to put it a bit in perspective.

The soundtrack with David Bowie's music (newly rereleased on CD) is powerful and fits the overall mood perfect. Note: Christiane F. continued to struggle with her drug addiction until 1996 when she had her son. She lives in Berlin.