MovieChat Forums > Christiane F. - Wir Kinder vom Bahnhof Zoo (1981) Discussion > So why did Detlev not even look at Chris...

So why did Detlev not even look at Christianne in the beginning?


It seemed the night before he had a crush on her and all, but the next day he just ignored her and went off with another girl. Then after the Bowie concert, started to talk to her again. Why did he do that?

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Well i think he didn't want to drag her down into that whole drug cesspool. When he noticed that it wasn't gonna matter that she was gonna do heroine anyway he started talking to her again. It was after the concert that she did heroine for the first time, in the car you remember?

I was passing out when you were passing out your rules

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Ahh animes. Boys are fickle and like to play games. I would postulate two things:

1. He wasn't really sure that he liked her at the beginning.

2. He was geniunely hurt by not being accepted for his Heroin addict status and sought solace elsewhere. When CF accepted him he realized that he had someone he could connect with.

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She orders a drink, passes Detlef, looks like she wants to talk to him but apparently too shy to make the first move, and he glances at her probably thinking the same thing. She goes off into the cinema where some creepy guy gives her a tab of LSD and starts pawing her. Detlef was watching her for a brief moment and then leaves. She moves to another seat and finds her friend gettin' it on with some guy; this blatant sexuality, the open availability of drugs and drug taking happening apparently revolts, frightens yet intrigues Christiane and she disappears into the bathroom which apparently were unisexual in that club, more like community bathrooms hence the "H" on the door, puts on more make-up, brushes her hair, insecure, lonely and bored swallows a white tablet (quaalude?) stares at the small greyish-greenish tab that the creepy guy in the theater gave her, and swallows that as well, only to vomit it all up within minutes. That is when first Axel, Bernt and then Detlef come over to her and Detlef gives her tissues to wipe off her face.

Now one week later she goes to the club and is appalled when she sees that Detlef just bought some heroin from a mysterious looking woman slightly older wearing a long leather coat and learns through her decided pep talk with Axel that Detlef is a heroin addict. She makes it clear to Detlef when she confronts him about it "don't use H ...or I'll never speak to you again". She goes to the Bowie concert with "Zombie" who unbeknownst to her was going through withdrawal though he feeds her lie saying that he is donating blood. She doesn't buy that. She sees Detlef with another girl and instantly looks dismayed. Throughout the concert she is distracted by some bikers having a brawl, some classmates strung out and the boy she went to the concert with seems totally "zombied" as a result of his withdrawal and won't talk to her, bored and lonely, unable to cope with her feelings, again swallows two tablets, moves to the front of the stage where she can practically touch Bowie. She runs into a very sick Zombie and Bernt is outside waiting to get him some heroin. So she learns that Zombie is a heroin addict as well as a liar. She finds the car where they're fixing, and begs to try it as a result of "am I the only one who doesn't use H?"

Within that time period, again runs into Detlef who is astonished to find her with Babsi and Stella who are accepting her into their clique once they've learned she does H also. At first Detlef is enraged "Do you have to copy everything I do?" and then intrigued because now she has the same type of head as he has--a heroin one.

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Pretty much on the money for a movie analysis ^

In the book Detlef and Christiane were actually very good friends before either tried H. The clique slowly all began to use heroin and then Detlef followed - like in the movie he became more interested in heroin than Christiane who was all but forgotten, even though they had been hanging out for awhile, cooking dinner together, cutsey stuff like that before either got into H.

Then once she tries H Detlef is angry out of concern, but then like in the movie he now realises they are on the same wave length and can be friends again - maybe lovers this time. The movie skips out too much plot for all of the underlying motives of the characters to be totally clear, unfortunately. I loved the relationship between Detlef and Christiane in the book, but in the movie it is flat and empty.

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There was a lot of stuff that was only in the book and not in the movie. For instance the times she went to Hamburg to be with her aunt and cousins to get off of heroin. Also in the book, her father played a part in helping her withdrawal. There were parts in the book where she had gotten arrested for drug possession. There were parts in the book of her going to a narcotics rehab center called Narconon. This was not in the movie. Also in the book, Detlev had been arrested and put in jail and so had her friends. When the book started, she was only 13 years old. She was at least in her mid to late teens when the book ended. The movie only took up the first two years in the Sound scene in Berlin, age 13 until age 15.

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Yeah, the movie pretty much missed most of Christiane's real 'downfall'...it gets so much worse in the book. There's like two more acts worth of material!

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