glamourises or deglamourises?

Personally I found the movie depressing. I didn't think The Sound was glamorous at all, it looked like a dump to me. I can understand what you're saying though. I remember reading that the real Christiane was disturbed that kids found her life "cool" and wanted to copy her, when in reality it's a horrible existence. I think some movies do glamorize heroin use, by using attractive actors and having good soundtracks. That's the movie industry though, they want to sell tickets by making the movie as appealing as possible,even if it is about drug addiction.





"Now if you'll excuse me, I've got to go fill my freezer with my own blood"

That's an interesting question, I've been thinking about this myself. In my opinion it totally depends on each viewer's general attitude. I think it's beyond any doubt that both Christiane F. and Trainspotting show the dark side of drug addiction: Misery, death, physical and emotional decay. Trainspotting certainly has a more quirky and humorous approach, but I think it gets its message across. In Christiane F. however there's basically no humor at all. Even less so in the book. Still I can't say that I'm in absolutely no way attracted to certain aspects of this kind of life. I think I could never sink so deep, because I'd still have enough reason and responsibility to prevent it. But, well, I'm the courious type and I often knowingly do what's not good for me.
In the case of Christiane F. I also feel a nostalgic longing for those times when West Berlin must have been an extremely exciting city.

I got the same feelings as you.
The first time I watched the film, it was an absolute shock.
Then, when I got to watch it a second time, I noticed all the "glamourizing" elements, the main one being the way the love story between Christiane and Detlef is told.
I think that, while "Christiane F." is more "gritty" and "realistic" on the surface than films like "Trainspotting", there is an underlying sense of romanticism throughout the movie.
This is not to say that this film endorses heroin use at all, though. The "glamour" might have been thrown in just to draw movie-goers to the box-office.

I'm not sure that it glamorises the drug scene...but I would agree that there is a certain atmosphere portrayed in any drug film that may appear desirable. I don't think that's because the writers and director have purposefully attempted to romanticise the scene, but because, like everything, it isn't entirely black and white. There are some good things about drugs, if there wasn't, then people wouldn't be taking them despite obvious indications that the results can be less then glamorous. At the beginning there are scenes like this, which aren't unrealistically romantic at all, because drugs aren't always bad. Then again, you can look at it from the perspective of somebody who would find the latter scenes glamorous because some people are attracted to destruction, for whatever reason. So really, if a film were to portray the drug scene accurately you would find both portrayals of the glamorous and unglamorous side, which Christiane F did quite well.

You thought the cast was glamorous?

I love this movie, too. Christiane F. and Requiem For A Dream are probably the best movies I've seen that deal with addiction and drugs.

I don't think it glamorizes the scene at all. Perhaps the attraction is more of excitement than glamor. The stuff they do like going to the Sound and running in the night are pretty exciting to a teen who hasn't experienced those things before.

But slamming the H (heroin) and the way they nodded out didn't look very fun to me. Especially when they would get sick trying to kick it. That was awful.

I believe this movie is the reason I NEVER tried H. I did mostly everything else but I stayed clear away from heroin.

But'cha Y'Are, Blanche! Y'Are In That Chair!

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IMO this film is about as gritty and real as it gets. Think about it - we start off with two main characters who are quite beautiful. We watch their slow descent into addiction, including one of the characters saying they have "control" over the drug (this is something that most, if not all, addicts say in the beginning).

We end up with those two characters looking as if they're being dragged through hell on earth. The look on her face inside the train station when her eyes are all swollen, she's confused-looking - it just broke my heart.

If that didn't get to you (not you, specifically, just the general audience), we have multiple scenes of both vomiting their guts out, sweating, chilling, having sex with random strangers, sharing bloody needles, using toiler water to load their needles, a 14 year old forced to beat the hell out of some naked pervert (with what looks like dead chickens hanging in the bedroom), etc.

Those are some of the most striking and brutally honest visuals regarding heroin abuse that we can get. Our two main characters, who start out looking so beautiful, end up looking like Satan sucked all their life and soul out of their bodies. I really don't know how much more "real" this movie could get. That is what heroin addiction does - it sucks the life out of the addict.

The beauty is I'm learning how to face my beast ~ Blue October