Christiane F. (1981)

Review:

I will be the first to admit I’ve been watching a lot of movies about drug addiction lately. It all started when I watched “Bad Lieutenant” (1992) and saw how truly horrific, poetic, and informative a movie like this can be. “Christiane F.” (1981) is another such horror story. If “Bad Lieutenant” can be considered a film about ascension, “Christian F.” would be a chronicle of the descent.

The story is a simple one and has been told countless times in film (“Traffic (2000),” “Requiem for a Dream,” (2000)). It’s about a girl who becomes addicted and to feed her addiction turns to prostitution. What makes “Christiane F.” such a remarkable film is the stark realism with which it is told, and the fact that Christiane (Natja Brunckhorst) is 14.

Bored with her life and living in Berlin with her oft absent mother, Christiane begins her descent by first visiting a night club where she experiments with valium and LSD. She meets a boy her age named Detlev (Thomas Haustein) who is addicted to heroine. One night after a David Bowie Concert (David Bowie plays himself and provides the film with its soundtrack) Christiane smokes some heroine and is soon thereafter hooked.

She soon finds out that Detlev funds his junky lifestyle by prostituting himself to men on the street. Instead of taking this as maybe a warning, Christiane learns from his behavior and quickly becomes a prostitute herself.

What is so harrowing about this film is not the story itself but the images it evokes: a man jumping over a bathroom stall to steal Christiane’s fix, a subway station filled with zombie-like youths, and perhaps the most startling vomit scene since “The Exorcist” (1973).

I think the image that will stick with me most is when Detlev and Christiane go through a withdrawal together. Their sweaty bodies churn on the bed, they heave and moan, and it all looks like a living hell. This scene is made all the more potent and painful by the scenes that directly follow. You realize how gripping their illness really is.

If ever you consider trying heroine please, please, please first see this movie. And if you can’t find this movie, go read “Naked Lunch.”

Review:

On a scale of one to Casablanca this film is a “Moolaade” (2004)

Rationalization:

“Christiane F.” is a film that works as a compelling story but also as a PSA. Its message is real and its purposes are not exploitation. It does not make the lifestyle of a junky look cool in the least. The film is littered with the sketchiest of places – bathrooms, subway stations, run down apartments and club basements – and these settings match the junky’s quality of life. When released in 1981 “Christiane F.” was a massive hit with the younger audiences, hopefully for the right reasons. The film exposed the underbelly of drug culture in Berlin and hopefully opened many eyes to a plague that exists all around us. It’s also a true story.