Wir Kinder vom Bahnhof Zoo
| Christiane F. – Wir Kinder vom Bahnhof Zoo | |
|---|---|
 |
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| Directed by | Uli Edel |
| Produced by |
Bernd Eichinger Hans H. Kaden Hans Weth |
| Written by |
Herman Weigel Kai Hermann Horst Rieck |
| Starring |
Natja Brunckhorst Thomas Haustein |
| Music by |
Jürgen Knieper David Bowie |
| Cinematography | Jürgen Jürges Justus Pankau |
| Edited by | Jane Seitz |
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Release date
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1981 |
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Running time
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138 minutes |
| Country | West Germany |
| Language | German |
| Budget | $2.7 million |
Christiane F. – Wir Kinder vom Bahnhof Zoo is a 1981 German film directed by Uli Edel that portrays the drug scene in West Berlin in the 1970s, based on the non-fiction book of the same name written following tape recordings of teenage girl Christiane F. The movie immediately acquired cult status (which it still retains today) and features David Bowie as both himself and the soundtrack composer, which gave the movie a commercial boost.
13-year-old Christiane Felscherinow lives with her mother and little sister in a small apartment in a multi-story concrete social-housing building in a dull neighbourhood in the outskirts of West Berlin. She's sick and tired of living there and has a passion for singer David Bowie. She hears of Sound, a new disco in the city centre, labelled as the most modern discothèque in Europe. Although she's not old enough to get in, she dresses up in high heels and makeup, and asks a schoolfriend, Kessi, who hangs out there regularly to take her. Kessi also provides her with pills. At the disco, she meets Detlev, who is a little older and is in a clique where everybody experiments with various drugs; one night while running through the Europa Center they vandalize a ticket booth. The next day, Christiane takes pills and LSD, and goes to a David Bowie concert where she meets Babsi, who shares her interests, and tries heroin for the first time by snorting it. As Christiane falls in love with Detlev, she begins using heroin on a regular basis in order to be close to him, gradually becoming more and more dependent on the drug until she is a full-blown addict. After her 14th birthday, Christiane stops going home and spends more and more time at her cohorts' unkempt apartment; she is also drawn to the Bahnhof Zoo, a large railway and subway station notorious for the drug trafficking and prostitution that takes place in its underpasses and backalleys. Christiane starts giving handjobs at first, imitating Detlef, who also sells himself to male clients on a regular basis.
Eventually, Christiane is discovered unconscious on the bathroom floor at home. She tries going cold turkey with Detlev: their withdrawal period is depicted with extreme hyperbole in its depiction of physical symptoms. However, the two relapse the moment they revisit the Bahnhof. To fuel her addiction, Christiane steals from home, sells all her possessions, and sinks to abysmal levels. In one of the crudest scenes, Christiane is jumped in a blood- and urine-soaked cubicle by an older junkie, who forces her to surrender her loaded syringe and proceeds to inject himself in the neck in front of a horrified old woman who happens to be in the lavatories too. Christiane and Detlev then find their best friend and roommate Axel dead due to an overdose in the apartment. They run away, ending up in the apartment of one of Detlev's male clients. When Christiane walks in on the two men having very loud anal intercourse, she has a breakdown and flees. Christiane goes back to the station to find Babsi, only to discover leaving there that she is dead of an overdose at barely 14 years old. In despair over her friends' deaths and her inability to break free from heroin, Christiane tries to overdose as well, but the movie abruptly breaks to an off-camera voiceover that says eventually Christiane recovered, but most of her cohorts either died or are still addicts.
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