'We know now that we can quit, so we can permit ourselves one shot'
Christiane F. 8.3
It is often said that there are no Anti-war films, since, films inherently glamourise thier subject. So no matter what, war comes across more humanised in visual stories. There is no combat in this film, at least not of guns and explosions, but a war of wills. Christiane F. is a film about drug abuse which is about as least glamorous as a film about drug abuse is possible to be.
I was excited by it very early on when Christiane, on her first visit to an underground Berlin club, stumbled into a screening room. On the screen was playing a scene from George Romero's seminal classic Night of the Living Dead - the moment when (spoiler) the daughter kills her mum in the basement. I loved seeing it because it is an all time great scene that funnily enough had been stuck in my head for a while before. But what does it mean. In NOTLD it is a shocking moment because of the presentation of it (not least the sound design) but also it is a daughter (albeit now a zombie) killing her mother shortly after killing her father. In Christiane I wonder if it was meant to prime the audience that nothing is off limits - as if to say, 'expect anything'.
The titular character is a 13 year old girl who falls into the wrong crowd when trying to grow up and be independent too quickly. In the club and in her friendship group, where she is desperate to fit in, there is already a culture of injecting or snorting heroine. Her first glimpse of it comes when she sees a guy high on H, a needle hanging out of his arm, slumped in the club toilets. She may presume he's dead, and freaks out. But a few minutes later as she is recovering outside, that guy walks past, seemingly well. This may be formative to us as the audience and to her, and crucial in her character ark as she now believes that whatever this drug does to you, it will pass and you will be fine, but of course we know that this is simply a misleading glimpse of that life.
She becomes part of what you might call a teen gang, they go around trespassing, thieving, killing time as unattended kids do in cities. Of course there's a boy she likes, Detlev, but he, after a few glances and meetings between them, chooses heroine over her (his story is almost a separate film altogether, built in to hers) When she meets him and sees that he's high she sweetly tells him 'I want to be on the same level as you', showing the audience that her innocent instinct is to fit in, not to rebel or break rules - this outlook of hers sums up the first act of the film. Her innocence and eagerness to be like others is something the audience can surely relate to, and makes us somewhat sympathetic to her, she just doesn't want to be left behind, a feeling we have all felt, especially whilst growing up. This connection we have with her is a real triumph of the filmmaking and her performance, it drives our experience through hers and makes some of her desperate actions later in the film perhaps not entirely understandable, but somewhat relatable and all the more heartbreaking because of it. It also makes you wonder about all of the other kids of a similar age that are into the same stuff, and how many similar stories there must be scattered through most major cities worldwide.
She puts pressure on herself to catch up with the rest of the group, all of whom seem very experienced in drugs of many kinds, so she takes some pills. Although she resists for quite a while, eventually she is surrounded by Heroin - 'besides me, who doesn't shoot up?'. Before long she is a regular user, and we see it is taking a physical toll. The make-up team do a great job of making her look worse as the film goes on. When we first meet her she is 13 years old and fresh faced, alot of our impression of her come from her look - she has straight, long brown hair and wears a white shirt with a black waistcoat.. she looked not unlike Annie hall. She borrowed her mum's shoes to appear grown up and look older, all of which presents a sweet, relatable innocence as mentioned, but then things decline. Bags under her eyes appear, she has poorly dyed, untidy hair and a vacant look.
Although at the start, she looks innocent and comes across sensible, there is still an ominous air to the setting and direction. She goes to her first club experience within the first few minutes and the film makes it feel like we are slipping into the underworld, following behind her as she descends into the dark noise. Within she finds a mass of non descript revellers and orders a cherry juice which of course looks just like blood in the poor lighting - perhaps a foreboding sign of pain and darkness to come. Before long after injecting, her addiction eats away at all aspects of her life and eventually desperation to score leads to prostitution, as is often the case, this leads to moments of rock-bottom for Christiane who by now will do anything to get the money she needs. This leads her to to an inner city train station known as Zoo station (The book was origally entitled We Children from Zoo Station) the local hub of depravity full of addicts, prostitutes, pimps and alike - it feels like the end of the world and is one of the more memorable film locations I can think of.
Christiane and Detlev have agreed to quit by resisting for a night together which results in possibly the most memorable scene of the film as they go cold turkey. During the excruciating night, as they are sprawled across the bed, unable to do anything but writhe, Christiane vomits multiple times. It is filmed in such a way that makes it more disturbing than the famous, comparable Exorcist moment. We feel for the two of them, Christiane especially, as they suffer to improve themselves. But heartbreakingly they decide once they have beaten thier demons, that they can carry on using occasionally. Of course we know it isn't that easy, they unfortunately can't control it and are almost immediately back to their worst states. The last few minutes of the film are littered with more desperation and tragedy on the parts of almost all the characters.
As mentioned above, the frank depiction of drug use doesn't glamourise it atall.. it's much more Panic in Needle Park than Trainspotting. And the fact that the writing and directing make it a straight talking, objective cautionary tale based purely in reality as opposed to an immersive experience to transport you to the mind of the user, makes it all the more harrowing and makes the dirty bits all the more skin crawling and believable. It feels more like Traffic (the strand about Michael Douglas and his daughter) than the mind-bending sequences from Requiem for a Dream, and it is all the better for it. The film had that low budget, grubby, grainy look which reminded me of the look of Henry, portrait of a serial killer. It is shocking in moments and harrowing in its effect making it live in your memory.
Although the technical filmmaking is for the most part straight forward and unremarkable, I liked how most of the film takes place in her own world, so interestingly there isn't really anyone telling her not to do it or to stop, making it too easy for her to fall into the habit again after she has successfully put an end to it. I think for the audience this means that we find ourselves to be more complicit than expected. Performance wise, this at times feels like a one header, despite an extensive cast of more minor but still crucial performances. This shows just how great the work from the star Natja Brunkhorst is in her first film role. Just being willing to do some of the things she does as an actress is impressive, especially considering how young she was.
Christiane F tells the true story of a real person, based on the book of her life. I have said before that I like bleakness in films and this is no exception. It is about as bleak as a solidly reality based film can get, and is immensely powerful because of it.
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