Minutes for November 12, 2003

There was in-class viewing of Wir Kinder vom Bahnhof Zoo (We Children of the Station at the Zoo). 

Study Questions:

1. Characterize Christiane’s home life.
2. Part way through the film, Christiane and her friends run through a shopping mall and generally act silly and also act up on a rooftop of the mall. What role does this sequence play in the film?
3. Christiane narrates the story of her addiction. What effect does her narration have on the way we see/understand the story being told?
4. What purpose does the David Bowie concert serve in the story of the film?
5. In what ways does the director use visual elements to reflect the highs and lows of drug addiction?
6. Films about drug addiction are sufficiently numerous to classify the topic as a sub-genre(formulate in nature). Compare this film to other films about drug addiction with which you are familiar. What are the recurring themes? How do other directors visualize the highs and lows of addiction? How do the films resolve the protagonist’s (protagonists’) problems?

Wir Kinder vom Bahnhof Zoo  (It was made on 1980 based on a true story.)

It takes place in Berlin, and it’s a story about a girl Christiane who lives with a divorced mother. She meets friend who are addicted to drugs, and she gets introduced to the drugs as well. At first she is hesitant, but she starts by taking a pill that a boy in a movie theatre gave her. She vomits, and she suffers from the effects, but she does not care. Then, her sister leaves her to go and live with their father.

When her mother comes home, she spends time with her like a normal mother and daughter, but she learns that her mother’s boyfriend, Klaus was supposed to come, and she goes out. When she goes out, she asks her mother to borrow her shoes, and her mother lends them to her, which can be interpreted as that Christiane is taking advantage of her because she knows that her mother cannot refuse it.

Christiane and her friends go to a shopping mall which is empty at night, and they just act silly as they are running through the mall and falling down just for fun. Then, they rob a store. When the police come, they hide, run away, and Christiane goes on top of the building with her boyfriend. As they smoke, her boyfriend, Detlev asks her to go to his place. Other people show up at that moment, and they stay on top of the building, looking out the city until morning. In the morning, Christiane and her friend Babsy are in the subway station to return home, and Babsy’s mother finds them. Babsy’s mother who is angry at Babsy and Christiane slaps Babsy and warns Christiane not to be around Babsy.

At home, Christiane tattoos herself by using a needing that is wrapped with thread and absorbed in ink, imitating Detlev. Christiane’s mother sees it, but she does not care much other than telling her that she will not be able to remove it if she tattoos herself. Christiane then, goes to the concert.Christiane finds out that Detlev is addicted to heroin, and to her surprise, her other friends responds that it is to stay cool. At this, Christiane’s reaction is taking more drugs.

In a concert of David Bowie, a singer whom she really likes, she finds out that Detlev donated his blood to get some money to purchase drugs, as he is destroying his health. Christiane takes more drugs, and the screaming crowd seems more distanced and songs blur. When people are dancing, Christiane who seems remote from all other people simply approaches to David Bowie without really realizing her surroundings. In the car to come back home, she insists on that she wants to try heroin like her friends, and they discourage her. She says that she just wants to sniff it, and she urges that she is on control over herself. Her friends responds her by telling her that that is what everyone says. She vomits and passes out after sniffing it.

She finds Detlev who does not like that she tried heroin. She just tells him that she wanted to know what he would feel. He takes to her home, and Christiane goes to bed with him. In bed, Detlev tells her that he goes to the Zoo Station, a place where drug addicted people gather and they earn money by prostitution.

Christiana wakes up on the morning of her 14^th birthday, and she feels like an adult. Her mother is not there, she just found a birthday cake and money. Christiane is with Babsy who asks her for heroin, and Christiane gets angry. Babsy tells her the same thing that Christiane has said, that she is all under control. Christiane goes to the Zoo Station with a piece of cake and the money and gives them to Detlev. She asks for heroin, but he would not give her. So, she borrows the injection kit from a stranger, and she injects heroin in a nasty public bathroom. Christiane wants to sleep with Detlev, but under one condition that he would stop doing heroin, on which he agrees. In bed, they say that that they love each other and that they should not be addicted to the drugs.

When Christiane finds Detlev in the Zoo Station later, she finds that he is in prostitution for a man to get money for drugs. Christiane accepts it. She asks Detlef for drugs, but he does not have any more, so she begs people on the street. She is unsuccessful getting money by begging, and one man follows her. She gets into his car, and she gets herself in prostitution as well to get money. She later tells about this to Detlev, and they discuss about withdrawal although they do not do it.

She injects drug in the bathroom at home before going to school, and she collapses. Her mother finds her unconscious without knowing what the problem was, and mother’s boyfriend, Klaus, finds the syringe. They call Detlev, so when Christiane regains consciousness, she goes to Detlef’s place and they try to withdraw together. They suffer tremendously, and Christiane tries to restart drugs to alleviate the pain, but Detlev stops her. They finally succeed in withdrawal, and they go back to the Zoo Station. To their astonished friends, they tell them to withdraw, and they tell them that it was not that difficult. The friends respond by saying that they should start quitting a day later. The problem is always the same, they always think that they can withdraw, but they would not start on it immediately. When Christiane and Detlev see them doing drugs, they tell each other that they know that they can withdraw, so they can do for one time. Because of this, they get addicted to drugs once again.

Under the influence of the drugs, the view of Christiane seems very distanced and she seems to be away from the whole world. She is in the middle of the crowd, but she is not part of them. Also the viewer sees Christiane always going down: going down the stairs, or on the elevator. This can be interpreted as symbol of her decline. Also, viewers hear only loud music, and there is no conversation.

One morning, when Detlev and Christiane visit Axel, their friend who is also addicted to drugs, they find that he is dead because he injected a wrong drug. This scare them, but it still does not prevent them from doing drugs again. They do not have any more money, so Detlev wants to go to live with a man to whom he sells his body, and they have arguments about it. Christiane, who does not have any money, tries to find money that her mother hid. With her mother’s money that she stole, she buys heroin, but as she was trying to inject it in a cubicle of a public restroom, a man steals it.

They always talk about quitting it, but then they always talk about starting “tomorrow”, so they never quit. Christiane and her friend Babsy talk about the therapy to overcome drug addiction, but they never do it.

Christiane finds Detlev who has money because he lives with his homosexual lover who gives him money for his prostitution. Christiane goes to his house and stays there briefly, but when she discovers that they are actually lovers, she leaves in shock. Christiane wants more drugs, but she does not have any money, so she finds another man who would pay her for prostitution. This time, the man is a masochist, and Christiane suffers to see theses abnormalities, but she does it for money.

As she wanders on streets in the morning, she sees a newspaper article that announces Babsy’s death due to drug abuse. Christiane, who is devastated, tries to commit suicide by overdosing the drug, but she survived it. Then she narrates that she has been clean for 18 months in her grandmother’s place, remote place from city, and she wants to share her story for other people who are addicted to drugs who are not strong or lucky enough to overcome it and survive it.