Berlin Alexanderplatz

I've recently watched Berlin Alexanderplatz a pretty interesting 2020 German film. As you can guess from its title, it's set in Berlin, with part of the action happening in the AlexanderPlatz area (the metro station under construction, the square itself...) It's a modern adaptation of the 1929 influential novel of the same title.

I hardly can remember the last time I watched such a long film (3 hours), and indeed I appreciate its extension, I think there's nothing in the film that could be removed. The story is pretty good, Francis-Franz, an African illegal immigrant reaches Germany after a traumatic journey. He aims to start a new life, leaving behind his past, where he has done too many mistakes "I want to be good". But his new path won't be easy, he'll be confronted with the best and the worst, solidarity and explotaition, love and hate, all the tastes of this think we call life... There's violence, there's partying, there are ugly men and beautiful women, there's pain, too much pain...

Films set in places I like, I know or for which I'm deeply attracted are of particular interest to me, and given that Berlin fullfills these 3 premises this film was an easy winner for me. We don't see the exterior of the building, but based on its interior, the psycopath drug dealer Reinhold seems to live in one of those Eastern Germany times appartments East Berlin central area, that are now quite appreciated by "modern types". Again based on the interior of the flat and the corridor, Franz's girlfriend seems to live in one of those nice 4-5 German buildings from before WWII. There are freak parties, strip clubs, some classy prostitution... nice ingredients... also drug addiction, exploited women, exploited illegal workers, beautiful young women hanging out with shitheads I guess just to get free lines... the unkind ingredients...

I appreciate that Francis-Franz does not complain about the evil, racist, white Europeans... He's exploited at first (as people at the bottom of society have been exploited for centuries), but then he seems to mainly experience the usual Western opennes that is ther norm in most of Europe rather than the imaginary racism that I've rarely seen. It's good to see realism rather than the typical fake victimization and left wing self-hatred...

I don't know if the groups of Africans that we see in the film selling drugs in Tiergarten really exist. I didn't notice them the last times that I've been in that area. Maybe they are a fictional reflection of the groups that have been a permanent disturbing presence around Görlitzer park since 2011.