Berlin Blues
Berlin Blues
| 01 October 2003 (USA)
Berlin Blues Trailers

In October 1989, the part of the West Berlin borough of Kreuzberg called SO 36, had been largely shut off by the Wall from the rest of the city for 28 years. A lethargic sub-culture of students, artists, bohemians and barflys had flourished among crumbling buildings. Part of that microcosm is barkeeper Frank, semi-formally called 'Herr Lehmann' by friends and patrons. He hangs out drinking, sports utter disregard for anything beyond SO 36 and lazily pursues an affair with cook Katrin. His lifestyle is gradually disturbed, when his parents show up for a visit, things go awry with Katrin and his best friend Karl starts to act strange. Meanwhile, political turmoil mounts on the other side of the Wall.

Reviews
Stevecorp Don't listen to the negative reviews
Lancoor A very feeble attempt at affirmatie action
Janae Milner Easily the biggest piece of Right wing non sense propaganda I ever saw.
Roy Hart If you're interested in the topic at hand, you should just watch it and judge yourself because the reviews have gone very biased by people that didn't even watch it and just hate (or love) the creator. I liked it, it was well written, narrated, and directed and it was about a topic that interests me.
readytorumble I totally don't see why people would like this movie, or give it good votes. The acting is extremely poor, the storyline is very boring, and even though the director "tried" to put the movie to a higher level, by putting in some weird scenes, he just makes it all chaotic and totally annoying.Except for Detlev Buck, who is doing OK IMHO, every single person in this movie seems to never have attended acting classes. The actors are so crap that it is really starting to annoy right when the movie starts.The movie is also full of surreptitious advertising made by Becks. Without counting it i would guess there are about 50 Beck's bottles shown in the movie, often with the camera on those bottles instead of the actors.I voted 2/10, giving credit to some ideas which might have been nice, if they were executed properly.
meyerzwo Hmm, who's the set director of Leander Hausmann? He should look out for a new one. The story is quite good, the main actor is great, but the set decoration makes me sick and remembers me all the time to Sonnenallee. Watch out or for the recycling bins after the scene where Frank and Katrin dispute in the Döner takeout. Leander, please remember, the story took place in the eighties. Another example? Did anyone read the story? Frank Lehmann came from Bremen, north of Germany.. And the slang of his parents? They sound like east Germans. And the hidden propaganda for Beck's Bier all the time... Boye, Hausmann, Buck, please stay away from making films.
heroin-bob As a fan of Sven Regener's (Author of Novel and Screenplay) Band "Element of Crime" I read the book and was really looking forward to see this picture. In some way I was hoping for a better "Soloalbum", an other adaptation of a German so-called "Pop-Novel". After seeing Soloalbum I really had the desire to kill just anyone involved in this movie that was nothing but let's say an average Romantic Comedy, having deleted all the cynicism, the melancholy the humor and the truth which made the book so marvelous. But let's get back to Herr Lehmann: I got what I hoped for! Sven Regener carefully adapted his own story for the big screen, transforming some words into images, thoughts into dialogs, leaving out what had to be left out and keeping this special humor that was one of the characteristics of the book. The only thing I missed is the Chapter about the "Ku'damm-Bus", which I would have loved to see on screen, but who cares about this detail... The cast (consisting of some of the best German On-Screen-Actors of the "old school" and a bunch of great Newcomers) is nearly perfect. It would take to long to name all the actors who played their roles so authentic and sometimes getting into the field of warm-hearted satire. The one that takes it all is obviously Detlev Buck playing Herr Lehmann's best friend Karl in a way that will be remembered for long time, I suppose. The soundtrack is really cool and the photography by Frank Griebe (besides Michael Ballhaus probably the best German Cinematographer at present) finds the perfect images to illustrate the life of the Boheme in West-Berlin at the end of the 80s. Leander Haußmann after all succeeded in even topping his first movie "Sonnenallee" and is now responsible for two of the best German pictures of the past years.
kruks 1. a remarkable screenplay (based on a contemporary literary classic) with several truly hilarious lines2. fresh, charismatic characters and actors, all the more convincing for their random quirks and non-supermodel appearance3. unconventional direction4. one of the best soundtracks EVER!a recommendation with five exclamation marks!!!!!