FREE ON CINEGEEK.DE Rudolf Thome - Berlin Chamissoplatz 

If film is really nothing more than doing pretty things with pretty women, then Rudolf Thome is a master of his craft. Germany's chief critic Hans-Christoph Blumenberg praised Berlin Chamissoplatz as the first masterpiece of New German Cinema in the 80s. Berlin Chamissoplatz is a film about love and that's why it still looks as fresh today as it did then. A 24-year-old sociology student (Sabine Bach) falls in love with an architect 20 years older (Hanns Zischler). She lives in a shared flat on Chamissoplatz. The rent is not expensive, but that is supposed to change, because now is to be renovated. The student and the architect face each other on different sides, it could just as well play in today's Kreuzberg. She has to defend her love for the one she is fighting against against her student friends again and again. He denies that he is the "enemy" and seeks the conversation - in vain. What intense scenes does Thome offer in this intrinsically banal constellation: while she combs her hair in the bathroom, he sings a song at the piano in the living room. She sits down on the sofa, listens, looks at him. The intensity of her looks, the shyness of him, it is one of those scenes that tingles! We understand the political background as well today as we did then. My uncle, also an architect, told me a lot about what happened with the renovation of the old Kreuzberg building in the late 70s. It would have been best to demolish everything and rebuild it! The students, on the other hand, print flyers on matrices and discuss whether the resistance should use the same means as the aggressor. Thome does not judge, sometimes one thinks that his voice is that of the architect. It is the only moderate opinion in the "class struggle". By the way, you can also see such beautiful Berlin shots as only rarely seen in movies (this is still true now, because there is something going on at every corner in this city!). Thome began his career in Munich with the same American role models as the authors of the Nouvelle Vague. That's why his early films look so dirty - Hollywood made in Germany. They are such films in which chases take place, because the chaser sometimes chases five meters and then again 500 meters after his victim. It was called the "Munich Group". In the 70's Thome moved to Berlin and changed his style. He became a typical European narrator, who taught his realism a very own unreal note (they called him the German "Rohmer"). The most beautiful Thome Dialogues are certainly not from this world! Thome has always staged his actors like stars and he succeeds in that also in Berlin Chamissoplatz! The women are his favorite and you have to call Thome a real women director. Women are superior to men when it comes to pragmatism and decisiveness. He has his regular actresses like Sabine Bach and I think that Thome is actually a bit in love with them. Hanns Zischler became his favorite male "star" in the 80s. You can always see that there is more to it than he shows. Thome is dependent on such reflected actors, because he refuses to psychologize too much. Thome has managed to finish almost 30 movies to date without ever getting much budget. It was always important to him that the films also make their money again and since Thome is more popular abroad than with us, he succeeded. So how about a whole DVD show of Thome's work? After all, he's one of the few people to reflect the lifestyle of their time in films like Berlin Chamissoplatz! Thome demands from a film that you then come out of the cinema and stroll along the street in a lively way. I think he did it!