Matt Shea
RubySoho
Morgan Bell
Cibbuano
David O'Connell
Mountain Fog
Berlin Calling @ the Sydney German Film Festival
March 30th 2009 00:14
He's DJ Ickarus, played by real-life DJ Paul Kalkbrenner, who also wrote the music that features prominently in the film.
The music is hysterically important - as DJ Ickarus attempts to complete his album, he captures sounds around him to sample for his new tracks... but his sensitive ears go into overload when a particularly noxious mix of party drugs send him into a psychotic episode.
"Berlin Calling" was a very enjoyable film, with enough cinematic contemplation to add a surprising amount of depth to Ickarus, without aiming for a nauseating sense of misery. No, just when things get better, director Hannes Stohr brings back the pain.
It resonated with me - not because I'm a world famous DJ - but because I was tangentially on the borders of the party scene, finding strange, mysterious emotions unlocked in the middle of the dance floor as pulsating music seemed to lift me higher. I tired quickly of the scene, but friends of mine didn't, burrowing themselves in deeper, surrounding themselves with the trendiest friends and images.
Like all trends, this one flatlined; only some of the club kids grow up and move on, though, a scattered few refusing to give up, updating the idea of partying like it's 1999.
"Berlin Calling" doesn't directly address this, but we sense it from Ickarus' relationship with his girlfriend, Mathilde, who was, obviously, a big part of the scene, but now has turned her DJ boyfriend into a serious business, managing him as he hits the decks.
At some point, Ickarus' real name is revealed to the audience, and it's a surprisingly powerful moment... he is reduced to a mere man, looking fragile and misspent, another tragic resident of the psych ward.
Every movement has its burnouts - the beatniks, the hippies, the metalheads and the candy kids. "Berlin Calling" is not, thankfully, a predictable, adulatory film about the techno/electro scene, but goes beyond that, to where the waves broke and rolled back.
I say: A wonderfully engaging film with an absolutely fantastic soundtrack. Definitely one to see in the cinemas.
See it for: Paul Kalkbrenner is outstanding... this is his first performance and he easily rivets between shocking humour and fragmented pain. Stohr has done an outstanding job putting this DJ on film...
*this image is from Duvet-Dayz
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