Series Review: "We Children from Bahnhof Zoo" ("Wir Kinder vom Bahnhof Zoo") (2021).

From the director of Perfume (Parfum) comes We Children from Bahnhof Zoo (Wir Kinder vom Bahnhof Zoo). This Drama series created by Oliver Berben, Annette Hess, Sophie von Uslar and Philipp Kadelbach, and based on the novel Christiane F.: Wir Kinder vom Bahnhof Zoo by Christiane Felscherinow, Kai Hermann and Horst Rieck. Christiane, Stella, Babsi, Benno, Axel und Michi: the children from Bahnhof Zoo. They relentlessly fight for their dreams of happiness and freedom. They want to leave all their problems behind. Together, they rush into Berlin's gritty nights and celebrate life and its temptations - until they realize that this rush will not only destroy their friendship but push them over the edge into an abyss.

In 1978, two journalists from the news magazine Stern, Kai Hermann and Horst Rieck, met Felscherinow in Berlin when she was a witness in a trial of a man who paid underaged girls with heroin in return for sex. The journalists wanted to disclose the drug problem among teenagers in Berlin, which was severe but also surrounded by strong taboos, and arranged a two-hour interview with Felscherinow. The two hours extended to two months, as Felscherinow provided an in-depth description of her life, as well as those of other teenagers, in West Berlin during the 1970s. The journalists subsequently ran a series of articles about her heroin use in Stern, based on the tape-recorded interviews with Felscherinow. In 1979, the Stern publishing house published a book based on the interviews, Wir Kinder vom Bahnhof Zoo. The book chronicles Felscherinow's life from 1975 to 1978, between the ages of twelve and fifteen years, and depicts several of Felscherinow's friends, along with other drug users, as well as scenes from typical locations of the Berlin drug scene at the time. The narrative of the book is in the first person, from Felscherinow's viewpoint, but was written by the journalists functioning as ghostwriters. Others, such as Felscherinow's mother and various people who witnessed the escalating drug situation in Berlin at the time, also contributed to the book. The UK issue of the book was released by Corgi on 21st August 1981 under the title H. Autobiography of a Child Prostitute and Heroin Addict and was translated by Susanne Flatauer. The first American edition of the book was released by Bantam in 1982 under the title Christiane F.: Autobiography of a Girl of the Streets and Heroin Addict, also translated by Flatauer. As of October 2013, Felscherinow continues to receive monthly royalty payments of €2,000 (US$2,720) for the book Christiane F. In 2013, a new translation by Christina Cartwright was published by Zest Books of San Francisco under the title Zoo Station.

The cast is quite believable in their respective roles, but in helping the film achieve a high level of veracity, it also gains a degree of sensationalism that doesn't sit well.

Berben, Hess, Uslar and Kadelbach has spared us none of the grimmest details of a young junkie’s life. And, thank goodness, because they've managed to destroy a lot of glamorous myths about the subject.

Simon says We Children from Bahnhof Zoo (Wir Kinder vom Bahnhof Zoo) receives:

Also, see my review for Perfume (Parfum).