Burhan Qurbani, Berlin Alexanderplatz, 2020
You've got to admire the balls of anyone daring to tackle a film adaptation of Alfred Döblin's 1929 novel today, especially since Rainer Werner Fassbinder's much-acclaimed 1980 epic 14-episode miniseries. So far the critics have not been kind - only one of the five reviews over at Rotten Tomatoes is positive, thereby giving the film a miserable 20% rating on that site, which it certainly doesn't deserve (but in fairness, each of the four critical reviews makes several sensible points: this one https://variety.com/2020/film/reviews/b ... 3514681/is representative - but see the film first!). Qurbani, born in Afghanistan but now resident in Germany, and his co-writer Martin Behnke have chosen to set the action in contemporary Berlin, and Franz Biberkopf is now Francis, an African refugee sans papiers. Instead of seedy Weimar-era bars, we have glitzy nightclubs (Franz's guardian angel - of sorts - Eva, runs one of them, and is now partnered by a transsexual - Herbert has become Berta) and gaudy brothels. Reinhold (a stellar performance from Albrecht Schuch) appears much earlier in this version than he does in either the book or the RWF series, and Qurbani's more or less replaced his speech impediment with a strange partially deformed left arm. He shows up at the asylum seekers' foyer quite early on to lure the hapless immigrants into selling weed for him in a local park. Francis, who's played very well by Welket Bungue, is eventually drawn into his circle, and the diabolical Reinhold eventually destroys any chance he had of turning out well (but I won't remind you of the plot, though I'd heartily recommend both reading the novel and watching the Fassbinder series). Jella Haase goes a great job following in Barbara Sukowa's footsteps as Mieze, even if Qurbani seems hellbent on accentuating the hooker-with-a-heart-o'-gold aspects of the story. The result is more conventionally genre-driven (part gangster flick, part melodrama) than Fassbinder's adaptation, but that didn't stop me enjoying and admiring much of what I saw. That said, if you're a purist, the director's decision to have Mieze heavily pregnant at the time of her murder and, worse, have her child survive to deliver a curiously upbeat and unwarranted happy ending will raise eyebrows. You can hit the stop button before the epilogue (it's not very long and you're not missing much without it). Fassbinder's notoriously self-indulgent and overlong last episode, "My Dream of the Dream of Franz Biberkopf by Alfred Döblin" also attracted a lot of flak, for different reasons. Whatever, my overriding impression of Qurbani's work is positive: any film / TV adaptation that makes you want to read the book again can't be bad. It's well-made, well-acted and well-paced (I was surprised though to see people moaning at a movie that lasts just three hours, given the time folks spend these days binge-watching crappy series). IHF's own Jon Abbey (if he still posts here - happy new year if you're lurking, Jon), as a huge Fassbinder and Kieslowski fan, will no doubt be even more horrified to learn that Qurbani's next project is to remake the latter's Three Colours Trilogy. I think the word for it is chutzpah.
Just about all we can do these days anyway, but I can usually cheer myself up watching things like
- once more, I found this much more enjoyable than I expected it to be, even the morose Helsinki final chapter. Pathetically anal trivia quiz for those interested: which other film features a scene shot on the Quai de l'Oise (near Porte de la Villette in Paris)?" Well, as nobody answered that question, I'll tell you: it was Rivette in Le Pont du Nord. Anyway, it's aged quite well, I think.
