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Martin Theo Krieger

Zischke

Director Martin Theo Krieger Composer Barbara Thompson Cast David Strempel, Amira Ghazalla, Michael Altmann
Edition 1987
93' - 1986 - Drama - Dialogue: German
The large cast of characters in this lively German feature provides a rough cross-section of a malcontent society in transit: corrupt policemen, cynical young prostitutes, illegal Lebanese aliens, delinquent runaway children, and Zischke himself: a sullen but self-reliant teenage cartoonist abandoned by his mother when she follows her American GI boyfriend back to the land of milk and honey across the Atlantic. Is it any wonder that a city with such a chronic identity problem as pre-unification Berlin would be inhabited by a shifting population of rootless, restless souls? Everyone here is vaguely dissatisfied and desperate for some way (any way) out, which soon arrives in the coveted form of two forged passports. The production benefits from some youthful enthusiasm on both sides of the camera, but there isn't much substance behind all the attractive black and white photography. And the script is fatally overwritten, introducing so many peripheral subplots that the final resolution can't help but seem anticlimactic.

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Credits

Directors

Martin Theo Krieger

Composers

Barbara Thompson

Cast

David Strempel, Amira Ghazalla, Michael Altmann

Scenario

Martin Theo Krieger, Reinhard Münster

Director of Photography

Claus Deubel

Editors

Raimund Barthelmes

Producers

Peter H. Backhaus, Martin Theo Krieger

More info

Dialogue

German

Countries of production

West Germany

Year

1986