Christiane F. – Wir Kinder vom Bahnhof Zoo (1978)

I have seen many films that deal with drug addiction; among them memorable films like ‘Requiem For a Dream’ or ‘Trainspotting’ have to be highlighted. However, I was blown away when I discovered this shocking and propulsive movie. The perspective that this film takes on the issue of drug addiction is totally different from everything I had seen before. “Christiane F. – Wir Kinder vom Bahnhof Zoo” is a German cult film, based on the same-titled book, and tells the story of the main character, Christiane Felscherinow.

Christiane is a 14-year-old girl who is living in a satellite town called Gropiustadt, a dark and desolate part of Neukölln, West Berlin. Growing up with a working and absent single Mom, she is often left alone and condemned to boredom. Searching for distraction, she soon discovers a place called ‘Sound‘, a cavernous disco located near the elegant and tourist-mile ‘Kurfuerstendamm’. The Sound is a sleazy place for teenagers, infested with drugs with dealers providing valium and heroin to children eager to escape their grim reality and have fun. This is where Christiane meets Detlef, a boy of her age. Detlef begins using heroin shortly after meeting, and Christiane – afraid of losing him in competition with the drug- also begins to use it. It is important to point out that the movie does not glamorize the drug. As soon as the abuse of heroin begins, the mood of the film changes instantaneously into greyness and a grim reality: Christiane and her junkie friends linger around the Bahnhof Zoo, prostituting their young bodies for their addiction.

The wonderful music of David Bowie (whom Christiane worships), is often heard throughout the first section of the film, most prominently with the song Heroes which is used in a chase-scene through the city, and a famous concert scene where Bowie performs Station to Station.

Fortunately, director Edel did not make the mistake that many American directors make when filming stories about teenagers: the actors here are real amateur teenagers, around 14/15 years old. This makes the film much more powerful and credible. I don’t think that a more grim vision of children lost in a surrealistic drug addiction hell will ever be contemplated in cinema. And to increase the intensity even more, the film is long, increasingly dark and repulsive, to the point where your emotional resistance is being driven to unexpected limits.

by Octavio Carbajal Gonzalez