Take a techno pumping, pill popping contemporary urban classic home with you, as Hannes Stoehr’s recent smash is now available on DVD.
In the wake of his Berlin is in Germany (Berlinale 2001, Panorama Audience Award) and One Day in Europe (Berlinale 2005, official competition), Hannes Stoehr has once again crafted a feature which sensitively and precisely captures the mood of a generation. With internationally renowned DJ Paul Kalkbrenner in the lead role (whom Stoehr discovers here for the cinema), the fast-paced, bass-thumping film’ll drag you on a rough ride through the dark side of a music industry – with all its ecstatic highs and deeply reaching lows.
Berlin Calling takes the supercharged, chemically imbalanced life of Berliner Martin, a.k.a. DJ Ikarus, as its body- and whatever else-popping subject. The Deutsche superstar DJ has toured the globe with his girlfriend and manager promoting his biggest album to date. On the eve of the album release, though, he finds himself in the ER of a psychiatric clinic overloaded with drugs after a particularly wild gig… Húha! After being diagnosed with drug-induced mental confusion and needing to wait for test results to determine the precise chemical concoction to be blamed, Ikarus is more freaked out than he wants to admit. As well as continuing to work on his current album, though, he also manages to take part in the active social life of the ‘open’ drug ward he finds himself currently wandering around in pressed whites. After professional set-backs, however, as the party animal’s plagued by panic-like flashbacks, things start to feel distinctly less like a rave up.
Increasingly frustrated with his situation in the drug ward, the reluctant patient sneaks out of the clinic, gets stocked up with particularly potent cocaine and spends the weekend partying with a groupie – possibly not the best way to avoid the breakdown of a relationship and the return to live-in lesbianism of your missus. Things spiral out of control from there on in. A tragicomedy set against the gritty backdrop of today’s Berlin, with a killer soundtrack.
The sabotage films & stoehrfilm Production has now been released on DVD. See www.betacinema.com for further details.
Berlin Calling
(Hannes Stoehr, 2008, 100 min.)