“Christiane F.,” the 1981 cult traditional nightmare imaginative and prescient of a teen woman’s descent into heroin habit in West Berlin, makes even “The Panic in Needle Park” appear like a stroll within the, nicely, you recognize.
German filmmaker Uli Edel tailored a harrowing nonfiction e book by Kai Hermann and Horst Rieck with testimonies from customers who haunted the drug-cruising spot at Berlin’s Zoo Station, together with from Christiane Felscherinow, who was 13 when she fell into the fallacious crowd and began taking pictures up amid the underground membership scene. For the movie model, Edel solid then-unknown actress Natja Brunckhorst (who would later write her personal memoir about her expertise making “Christiane F.”) because the David Bowie-worshipping teen addict experimenting with old flame and drug use. Felscherinow finally turned an actress and musician herself.
Now, a brand new 4K restoration from Janus Movies of “Christiane F.” opens at Movie at Lincoln Middle beginning June 20, with screenings on the West Coast on the Los Feliz Theatre in Los Angeles. Edel takes a decidedly non-moralistic method to capturing the precise drug-addled youth who populated Berlin within the ’70s; at one level, Christiane (Brunckhorst) stumbles in a bleary daze via a tunnel lined with strung-out punks, needles hanging out of their arms and their eyes glazed over. It’s one among many documentary-like moments in “Christiane F.,” because the filmmakers captured actual customers within the underpass. As for the graphic nudity amongst minors seen within the movie, that’s now unlawful, however the first-time actors’ dad and mom consented on the time.
Justus Pankau and Jürgen Jürges’ cinematography possible hasn’t regarded this shockingly vivid for the reason that movie’s 1981 launch, when Roger Ebert referred to as it “one of the crucial horrifying films I’ve ever seen.” Edel captures the jet-black streets at night time and the bunker-like postwar subterranean of Berlin in a method that feels oddly romantic and nostalgia-worthy — particularly below the gleaming neon signage of the stylish discotheque Sound — with out ever romanticizing a youth-culture-killing drug epidemic.
“Christiane F.” additionally stands out for its soundtrack, provided by David Bowie with songs from the albums “Heroes” (together with the title monitor, enjoying nearly triumphantly as Christiane joins a marauding band of road youngsters wreaking havoc in a mall), “Station to Station,” “Lodger,” and “Low.” There’s even an excerpted David Bowie live performance, initially shot in New York, juxtaposed with viewers pictures from an AC/DC live performance in West Germany. Bowie’s inclusion makes for a slicing distinction between the doomy glamor of Berlin’s late-’70s membership scene with the darkness thrumming beneath it.
Edel, working from Herman Weigel’s screenplay, neither shies away from the brutality of Christiane’s plunge into underage intercourse work nor the cold-turkey withdrawal hell she experiences along with her boyfriend (Thomas Haustein), the place they find yourself scrambling desperately for an additional repair. As soon as clear and with assist from her mom to get sober, Christiane thinks she will be able to deal with yet another shot within the arm, however that proves not possible as she’s thrown into extra tragic circumstances.
“Christiane F.” capabilities by itself phrases as a bit of provocative pure cinema, however it’s additionally in a social dialogue with the rise of cautionary tales just like the controversial American “memoir” “Go Ask Alice” from 1971, which charts a 15-year-old woman’s self-destruction and was later deemed fiction. The e book was used as an academic instrument to warn youngsters off drug use, a convention of agenda-driven anti-drug artwork that started with the American exploitation film “Reefer Insanity” within the Thirties, and naturally continued with myriad after-school specials. (Helen Hunt in “Determined Lives,” anybody?) “Christiane F.” inadvertently may need served the identical function, however Edel isn’t chasing ethical instruction right here. He’s capturing a second, a milieu, and it’s one which the real-life Christiane finally pulled herself out of, not like lots of her buddies.
Janus Movies‘ 4K restoration of “Christiane F.” opens at Movie at Lincoln Middle on Friday, June 20.