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David Robb
, April 9th, 2021 08:56
Set in the grimy pre-unification Berlin of David Bowie, Lou Reed, Einsturzende Neubauten, Christiane F. is a stylish, low-budget tale of teen heroin addicts with a cult following – now at risk of being commodified into an idea rather than anything real, finds David Robb
Few places have been mythologised in the contemporary cultural imagination more than late 1970s / early 1980s Berlin. With German society in a state of flux, and post-war economic deprivation leading to cheap rents and vast swathes of abandoned industrial space, the western part of the capital proved an ideal breeding ground for all kinds of exciting counter-cultural developments. Before the Wall fell in 1989 ahead of the eventual reunification of the country, the city served as an artistic refuge for the likes of David Bowie, Lou Reed, and Nick Cave, as well as producing such iconic homegrown talents as Einsturzende Neubauten and Tangerine Dream.