Quartile rating: 4.5/10 · 1 rating
A depiction of the Wrangelkiez neighbourhood in Berlin. The people portrayed tell their life stories. One woman came to the neighbourhood a decade ago to work in Berlin’s still unfinished Brandenburger Airport, one man reminisces his childhood on a Tobacco farm in Kentucky, another speaks of an exceptional day in an otherwise monotonous workplace. These portraits are interwoven with the story of Elpi, a Greek woman who is waiting for the long overdue visit of an old important friend. The outcome of this mixture is a film which captures the lives and perspectives of some of Wrangelkiez’s most commanding citizens, while at the same time evoking the loss that change and time passing means for places and for people.
This short documentary portrait of Berlin's Wrangelkiez neighbourhood weaves together intimate vignettes with modest craft. The interlocking personal stories create a gentle, melancholic texture about memory and place, but the narrative structure is fairly conventional for observational documentary. The subjects are compelling in their ordinariness though not particularly polished on camera, and the cinematography is competent without being visually distinctive. The Elpi thread adds an elegiac emotional anchor but the ending feels inconclusive rather than resonant. Novelty is moderate — the film has a specific, grounded voice but works within a well-worn observational documentary tradition without radically departing from it.