literary adaptation
Arte shows “Berlin Alexanderplatz”
Will Mieze (Jella Haase) be able to save her Francis (Welket Bungué). photo
© Stephanie Kulbach/ZDF/Arte/dpa
Döblin’s classic in a completely new interpretation: Francis wakes up on the beach as the sole survivor of a refugee boat. He swears to God: From now on he wants to be a decent man. Does this work?
The novel is on many bookshelves, whether actually read or not: With “Berlin Alexanderplatz” Alfred Döblin published a story in the 1920s that is now part of world literature. And anyone who decides to make a new film has to compete against known templates. Director Burhan Qurbani has presented an exciting version of the story in 2020. This Wednesday at 8:15 p.m she can be seen on TV for the first time on Arte.
In the novel, the wage worker Franz Biberkopf leaves prison after years. Different in the new film. You can hear breathing, you see black and red on the screen, the picture is upside down. People are drowning in the Mediterranean Sea. One survives and tries to go through life honestly in the German city.
Weird gait and whispering voice
But he ends up in today’s Berlin between dealers in the Hasenheide city park, a hub for hashish and other drugs. The protagonist’s name is not Franz, but Francis (Welket Bungué). He meets the gangster Reinhold in an elevator. Albrecht Schuch (“System Crasher”) plays the rather insane guy, with a crooked gait and a whispering voice.
Once both are sitting in a bathtub. “I want to be good,” says Francis. Yes, Reinhold dismisses it. But what is good? And what is bad? He teaches him a lesson about gas prices and the distribution of wealth around the world. And explains: “You want to be good in a world that is evil.” You want to be good in a world that is evil. With sentences like these, Qurbani manages to bring the story up to date with ease.
Jella Haase (“Fack ju Göhte”) plays the third important character in the film, the prostitute Mieze. She is Francis’ salvation. Reinhold, however, involves Francis in his drug dealings, shows him brothels and clubs, hires couriers and lets banknotes flutter out of a toy gun. Then the situation escalates. “It’s not easy to elude the devil once you’ve invited him over,” it says at one point.
“This is the new world – built of dirt and powdered sugar”
Qurbani – himself a child of Afghan refugees – has already presented a film about the riots in Rostock-Lichtenhagen with “We are young. We are strong” that has stuck in people’s minds. With “Berlin Alexanderplatz” he also creates an atmospherically dense film, not least because of the impressive sound design and the film music by Dascha Dauenhauer.
Qurbani takes you to clubs and strip bars, to refugee camps and luxury hotels, to people with a migration background and their own gender identities. When he parades Francis in a club with a monkey costume among warlords or when others give him a new name (“Wat Stabilet, wat Deutsches” – “You are Franz”), Qurbani also deals with everyday racism.
The sound track, the reinterpretation of the story and above all the images develop an intense power that has not been seen in German cinema for a long time. “This is the new world – built of dirt and powdered sugar,” the film once said. “We are the new Germans.”
Francis has to fail to find himself
With the book, Döblin (1878-1957) became the literary star of the Weimar Republic. The expressive language, a rapid montage of scenes, good dialogue and the hectic pace of city life that can be felt while reading have made the novel great. There are already two famous film adaptations – including the 14-part mini-series by Rainer Werner Fassbinder. That was long before streaming subscriptions, namely in 1980. The first broadcast was quite a sensation. But one thing annoyed some viewers: the pictures were so dark that you could hardly decode them on the TV. Some also found the variant very dingy and sexually charged. Today it is considered a classic.
In the end, Döblin’s novel is about putting Franz Biberkopf in the middle class of society, said Qurbani in an interview with the German Press Agency at the time of the theatrical release. “That’s a core statement for me, and that’s what we tell.” Francis has to fail in order to eventually find himself.