KAOS: This is Not Berlin

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F I L M S K O O L

A F I L M I S A P E T R I F I E D F O U N T A I N O F T H O U G H T

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It’s 1986 and as Mexico’s capital goes World Cup-crazy, 17-year-old Carlos spends his days getting into schoolyard brawls and cruising around town with his rowdy pals to the thumping sounds of Judas Priest. But heavy metal guitar riffs soon give way to post-punk synths when Carlos visits subversive new-wave nightclub Azteca and finds himself immersed in a transgressive world of music, art, politics, drugs and sexual fluidity. Finally feeling like he fits in, the blossoming teen begins to forge his own identity and open himself up to a new and exciting world of untold possibilities. BFI

ow you respond to Hari Sama's This Is Not Berlin will largely depend on your tolerance for '80s New Wave/punk. If that's your thing, you'll love this film. If, like me, it leaves you cold (or worse, running for the hills), large portions of This Is Not Berlin will struggle to hold your attention.

Which is a shame, because there are some interesting ideas here: a twist on the coming-of-age tale, a look at middle-class Mexican life in the mid-1980s, and the AIDS crisis.

I didn't connect with the blank, androgynous Carlos (Xabiani Ponce de Leon), and his oh-so hip sister Rita (whose performances we're subjected to with irritating regularity) grates. His best friend Gera (José Antonio Toledano) is more appealing, but is a little lost in the mix of self-regarding, self-aggrandising artists the boys fall in with.

As a showcase for angsty, '80s avant-gardism, This Is Not Berlin succeeds. Artists possessed of their own importance will probably revel in it.

I didn't.

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"A film is a petrified fountain of thought." Jean Cocteau, French filmmaker, 1889-1963

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F I L M S K O O L

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