Esto no es Berlín (This is Not Berlin)
THIS IS NOT BERLIN - SAMUEL GOLDWYN FILMSFrom the beginning of Hari Sama’s too-conventional-until-it’s-not coming-of-age tale, This Is Not Berlin, it’s clear that this is a rather unoriginal and shallow film. This is Mexico City in the 80s and after a well-shot, if childish, fight between two rival schools, we get a lot of scenes of teenagers smoking, cursing, playing records, running away from their parents, lusting after the best friend’s sister and selling dad’s pornographic magazines on the side. All of those things are practically high school rites of passage, at least according to the vast majority of high school-set films, and This Is Not Berlin doesn’t tell a powerful enough story to transcend the stereotypes or add anything of its own — until the second half, that is, when the film adds too much for no reason.
The film is focused on Carlos (Xabiani Ponce de León), a teen who, along with his best friend Gera (José Antonio Toledano) and with the help of Gera’s sister Rita (Ximena Romo), gets mixed up in the — mostly gay — nightclub scene of Mexico City. It has to be noted that mixed up is not used off the cuff, it is because that’s how the film portrays Carlos’ journey: as a mad descent into the seedy gay underworld, complete with drugs and a whole lot of “art”. This arc is shot in the same way as and regrettably reminds one of a film centered on drug addiction. Cinema and narrative aside, this isn’t the most progressive film to showcase gay characters.
Luckily, this isn’t a film where one has to separate the art from the artist because the art itself is just as frustrating. In perhaps the most blasé scene of the film, a critic of the art that the club’s denizens are making tells them to stop copying European art because “This is not Berlin!” Yup, that’s the title — and the film doesn’t let you forget it. Obnoxiously, and unrealistically, everybody in the room stops talking; a beer bottle is thrown, the music is shut off and everyone looks at the speaker. It’s so over the top that it becomes silly.
That same silliness, unfortunately, infects one of the film’s later passages involving the totally out-of-the-blue and cliché death of a loved one. In one of the least convincing scenes of the film, a mother’s grief turns to utter melodrama in a moment that not even the great Marina de Tavira can save from ridiculousness.
Believability aside, once the film takes its turn from convention into extravagance, the film becomes a dizzying concoction of sensationalism for the purpose of sensationalism. Sama shows us everything, but why? It certainly wasn’t in service of character, as Carlos’ arc is bland and borderline undefinable. As the protagonist of the film, there should have been some insight into his actions but instead, we get about as blank of a slate as one can find. The only line that resonated at all or gave any deeper insight into his character was too little and came far too late in the story.
Despite the trite pastiche of other coming-of-age films that makes up the backbone of This Is Not Berlin, there are spots of brightness to be found. Chief among them is the use of colour. Every shot is lit with a vibrant palette of neon colours that makes the story a little bit more than watchable. The cinematography itself is competent but it’s really the colors that shine.
Aurally, the music is great at setting the tone and vibe of the nightclub and tracks Carlos’ emotional reckoning better than the film itself. Like most of the film, it isn’t anything you can’t find elsewhere, but that doesn’t mean it’s any less attractive. This Is Not Berlin keeps one’s attention even as it infuriates one’s sensibilities.
