Please note: This was screened in Oct 2023
Based on Alfred Döblin’s modernist novel from 1929, Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s fifteen-hour Berlin Alexanderplatz is one of the great films of the twentieth century.
Fassbinder’s brilliant melodrama follows ex-convict Franz Biberkopf (Günter Lamprecht) as he attempts to become an 'honest soul' amid the corrosive urban landscape of Weimar-era Germany. His attempts to go straight are soon lost as he gets involved in the criminal underground.
Bringing together cynicism and humanity, Fassbinder, and his magnificent cast (many from his stock company) provide an epic portrait of a common man struggling to survive in a viciously uncommon time, set against a cold and desperate Berlin.