Variety
The episodic, sometimes almost soap-operatic nature of Qurbani's storytelling sacrifices a great deal of thematic depth for a great deal of eventing instead.
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Berlin Alexanderplatz
Nominated for the Golden Bear at Berlin 2020, this three-hour German drama follows a man from Guinea-Bissau who moves to Germany to start a good life for himself. That all changes, however, when he's befriended by a drug dealer and two women.
An African immigrant struggles to make a new life for himself in the big city in this reinterpretation of Alfred Döblin's 1929 novel. After surviving his perilous journey, Francis vows to be a good man, but he soon realizes how difficult it is to be righteous while undocumented in Germany -- without papers, without a nationality, and without a work permit. When he receives an enticing offer for easy money from the psychopathic gangster Reinhold, Francis initially resists temptation, but eventually he is sucked into Berlin's underworld and his life spirals out of control.
Less2021Rating: R16, Violence, offensive language, sex scenes and content that may disturb183 minsCanada, France, Germany, Netherlands
DramaWorld CinemaFestival & Independent
Berlin Alexanderplatz | Reviews
Screen Daily
In modernising 'Berlin Alexanderplatz', Qurbani has created an ambitious but also stridently melodramatic moral parable that seems oddly dated.
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The New York Times
A nice place to visit but you might not want to live there for three hours.
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