Berlin Alexanderplatz

Modern adaptation of Alfred Döblin's novel from 1929. This film is a fantastical, real-life tragedy. Wondrous cinematography & excellent acting. Truly German cinema at it's absolute BEST!

Cinematography, art direction and costumes are setting the stage for a few great actors like Albrecht Schuch and Joachim Krol who all sadly fail to bring a flawed script to greatness in this artistic effort. One star each for the above mentioned.

The story follows the rise and fall of Francis (Welket Bungué), a refugee who tries to be a good man while earning a living in a wealthy country suppressing the options to do so. He is soon approached by a drug dealer (Albrecht Schuch) offering what seems to be a way out of his misery. Thus, the tragedy unfolds. Burhan Qurbani's handwriting as a director has significantly improved over the course of his now three feature-length films. And now he has delivered a masterpiece. The film manages to combine elements of hyper-realism with poetic moments, strengthening each other's impact. The music is sometimes subtle, sometimes loud, and always on point. The actors' delivery is gripping and powerful. The story itself is an adaptation of Döblin's masterpiece novel of the same name. It is fittingly transferred into current day Berlin, and - while staying true to the novel's intent - it is told in a far more concise manner to suit its format. I actually hate movies longer than 100 minutes, but due to its separation into 5 chapters Qurbani somehow managed to not annoy or bore me for a second.

Migration. Refugees. Asylum seekers. Familiar terms. Eventually also a number of films about the lives of these people who choose to flee in the hope of finding a better life.

This ambitious, long German film is thus an important contribution in shedding light on the lives of some of these people. A film with a message, which in turn can give us viewers new insight.

However, I must write that this film turned out to be completely different from what I had thought beforehand. It starts with an escape. In the first part, it shows the incredible vulnerability many of these people experience. Not a passport. Not rights. Vulnerable to being exploited, which this main character also experiences to a great extent.

Later in the film, a shift occurs. The main character survives by getting involved in criminal activities and with some scary criminals who have major consequences for him. The film then turns into a kind of crime/action film.

This movie is good. It could have been somewhat shorter, but is still worth watching. Welket Bungué as the protagonist Francis plays convincingly. German shooting star Albrecht Schuch is uncannily good as the psychopathic and brutal Reinhold. The film is peppered with many exciting personalities, also with skilled actors who give convincing life to these characters.

A minus from me at the end: there is a narrator's voice that we can regularly hear in the film to describe Francis' thoughts and actions. Totally unnecessary. The film is so clear and insightful, that we could have let go of this Minnie Mouse voice that keeps popping up.

Remember when almost nobody knew who Christoph Waltz was? And then everybody watched Inglourious Basterds and the rest is history. With Robert Schuch who plays one of the main characters it will be the same. Every actor in this movie is very good but he is acting circles around the others. You are glued to the screen every time he is on screen and he has a lot to play with since his character changes a lot during the movie. And the more we realize what he does with the character we can't help to be in awe with this troubled character.

Even though I would say watch the movie just to see Schuch's performance Berlin Alexanderplatz is a great movie. I didn't know anything about it. Just saw the trailer and my jaw dropped when I saw that is 3 hours long. But the trailer already kind of told you that this is something different. To be honest you could tell this story probably with 30 minutes less but it definitely needs to be long because you watch the journey of two men even though one is supposed to be the focus. The cast is great, the music is chosen well and it is shot beautifully. They create this world that our characters live in which by the way has nothing in common with reality but it isn't supposed to. It is full of colorful characters some of them very over the top. It is big, it is loud and you will have the full range of emotions. You will laugh, you will be scared in some scenes anticipating bad to happen, you will feel sorry for people, you will be angry at them and also love when they love.