Christiane F. - Noi, i ragazzi dello zoo di Berlino

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!

For a long time I had misgivings about this film. I thought that it would be like so many others, where a teenager enters in the world of drugs, lives through hell and, in the end, returns safely to the womb of family and society - in-between we are treated with edifying speeches delivered by mothers and/or fathers, with rights to tears and lots of sentimentality.

This is not the case of "Christiane F. - Wir Kinder vom Bahnhof Zoo". The film is direct and honest and shows the events as viewed by the children from Bahnhof Zoo. The film tries to show things as they are and be objective. No moralist speeches are given. That's why the film has such power. The first film scenes show Berlin in the night. The main attraction for Christiane and friends is the discotheque Sound. It all begins there.

There are many night scenes in the film. The days look dark and gloomy. In the beginning their meeting place is Sound, but as the road becomes narrower, there remains only one place for them: The Bahnhof Zoo. Days and nights seem to merge more and more. And the day resembles more and more the night. A long night, a short step can lead to eternal night.

This stuff almost begs to be treated in a sensationalistic way. But "Christiane F. - Wir Kinder vom Bahnhof Zoo" is a serious film. It deserves to be seen.

Christiane F - We The Children Of Bahnhof Zoo is a 1981 film directed by Ulrich Edel based on the torrid accounts of a young girl living in West Berlin during the 1970's and her addiction to heroin and subsequent descent into prostitution.

Based on the accounts of her non-fiction book of the same name the film details the period in which she began experimenting with drugs, such as cannabis and L.S.D, to her initial foray into heroin use and ending with her complete abasement.

Shot with a low budget and employing a large number of first time actors, many of whom chose never to further a career in film, as well as a large number of extras sourced by the production team who were in fact real life junkies and down and outs. These factors alone contribute to the films startling sense of realism and authenticity.

Also, many of the films locations such as the club where Christiane hung out and the nefarious "Zoo" station where young addicts would prostitute themselves are the original locations in which the characters experiences are based, adding further to the films genuine portrayal of the seedy drug scene of West Berlin in the 70's.

The cinematography is bleak and unforgiving and brilliantly captures the barbarous nature of the scene and subject matter. Edels sparse and careful approach gives the piece an almost documentary style and no doubt this unflinching depiction, along with the graphic, perfunctory portrayal of teenage drug abuse contributed to its controversy.

Natja Brunckhorst provides the role of Chritiane and turns an astonishing debut as the heart breaking girl whose life debases to unimaginable depths within such a short space of time. Showing many audiences across Europe that the looming Heroin epidemic was not just confined to older people but also its ruthless and savage affects and how immediate its ravages take place.

This film pulls no punches. Its gritty, no nonsense representation of heroin, and its consequences, are shocking and tragic. The director also manages to take these dissolute children and allow us to view them free of judgement and witness first hand the terrible conditions in which some youths find themselves living within the confines of a so called civilised society. Many a question will arise when watching this film; how, why etc. But its principal aim is to simply allow us a front row seat to a window into a world most of us are hitherto unaccustomed - the nefarious, cruel and grievous life of a teenage addict who ambulates the inevitable path toward prostitution and ultimately burnout.

A great film with fantastic performances and above else, a great soundtrack provided by David Bowie. If you thought Trainspotting back in the late 90's was a shocking film about heroin abuse then this piece will hit you hard because despite its cult status this film is as real and as heart breaking as it gets.

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.

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.