I can't help to think that Christiane F. is the precursor of Transpotting.
The movies are very similar in their portraits of the drug scene.
The difference is Trainspotting have humor, Christiane F. don't.
Trainspotting is awesome. One of the best movies of the last 10 years.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0117951
Christiane F. is probably not so funny because it was real :o(
Naughty naughty!
Christiane was still a young, neglected teen so her coming of age story was brutal and full of desperation.
Trainspotting was tragicomical and cool but I felt none of the characters, besides Tommy in the end and the drug den chick whose baby died, have truly hit rock-bottom.
Both movies are great though.
"Both movies are great though." deffo
they both sum up a time and a place so well. Trainspotting was all the rage when I was 18 and first came to England and it will always remind me of that exciting time. It's deals with a really serious subject but the way it was shot is just so cool, fresh and hip. It won't date.
Naughty naughty!
Same in the US, at least in New York Sh/i/ty Trainspotting is unique because it doesn't take itself too seriously.
I have a special connection to "Wir Kinder von Bahnhof Zoo". The book was all the rage in Poland when I was a teen and had a profound impact on me. The movie was very timely too. Pre-solidarity Poland had a huge number of alcoholics and junkies but the government never properly treated them. They wouldn’t even admit them to hospitals because they’d "ruin the statistics". In socialist propaganda, officially drug addicts just didn’t exist yet they were around us. I knew a very pretty girl Christiana’s age who looked like a blond, blue eyed Nastassja Kinsky and was already shooting up "kompot"-- a powerful heroin-like opiate homemade from fresh poppy seeds. Her life story resembled the book a lot---broken home, being alone most of the time, resenting the mother for divorcing her beloved father, teenage rebellion, 18 y.o bf who was already a heroin addict, hanging out with the wrong people, running away from home, being pulled out from drug dens, stealing money from her mother, sex for dope or money, overdose, rehab, relocation, overcoming her 2 year addiction. That’s why movie about Christiane looked and felt far more real to me.
Hi Nyccoolgirl
cool - I grew up in the GDR - it's nice to meet someone else who grew up behind the iron curtain! You're so right - drug addicts simply did not exist. It was a desease of the "class enemy" lol The propaganda machine did a grand job but nobody (at least when I grew up there in the 80's) believed that stuff anymore.
Pisces rule!
You bet, in Poland commies couldn't con people into believing in their ridiculous "propaganda of success". Actually, every time I watch a movie from that period especially early Kieslowski I, myself can't believe I lived through all that. It looks like a complete sci-fi to me. On the other hand I remember going to school on Saturdays till 1980 when Solidarity fought for the work/school free weekends and won. It's so easy to take things for granted when you have them.
I still went to school on Saturdays in 1989 only until lunchtime though
Pisces rule!
Poor you. That blows!
I remember those insane Siberian winters when there was no heat in school but we still had to go and sat there in coats, gloves and hats. Only after the temperature hit -30 C and the pipes broke we could stay home. However, our joy was short-lived because for every missed day during winter we had to go to school longer in the summer. The same thing happened when the martial law was announced on 13 XII 1981. Everything was closed for weeks and we teens were pigs in sh...t. Then we were at school almost till mid-July.
Crikey that sounds rough! I remember those cold winters but luckily we got days off school then (also when it was too hot in the summer but less frequently) - usually in February when it was icy and nobody could actually make it to school. We didn't have to make those missed days up in the summer either - that really sucked for you
Pisces rule!
We got no freakin' break but there were some good sides. The constant water and electricity shutdowns especially in the winter provided a great excuse why we didn't do homework or prepare for classes. Some older teachers were unforgiving though and would say: "you got candles, right? " Bastards lol.
Anyway, Wir Kinder.. is a generational thing for me: reality, music--David Bowie etc.
[deleted]
agreed - its the grandmother of KIDS!
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