‘Je Suis Karl’: Film Review | Berlin 2021 Jon Frosch Je suis Karl
Young Europeans’ swerve toward the right and far right gets another movie thrown at it with the premiere of
Je Suis Karl, from German director Christian Schwochow (
November Child, Cracks in the Shell). The film tries to follow in the footsteps of previous German-language films such as
The Edukators, The Wave and last year’s
And Tomorrow the Entire World, all works that attempt to figure out what it is about political extremes that seduces young people and how their idealism and hormone-powered gumption can eventually come head-to-head with the much uglier realities of politics and life.
film profile], who connected from his Berlin home. His film, a German-Czech offering in Berlinale s Berlinale Special strand, is a study of infatuation: with a person and with an ideology, which, as in most cases, is not what it initially seemed. The title alludes to the
Je suis Charlie slogan that was coined after the massacre at the
Charlie Hebdo office in 2015. The protagonist, Maxi (
Luna Wedler), who by chance survived the bombing of her home, falls for the charismatic Karl (
Jannis Niewöhne), who conceals his connection to the far right.
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