Berlin, I Love You (2019)

Directed by: Dianna Agron, Peter Chelsom, Claus Clausen, Fernando Eimbcke, Justin Franklin, Dennis Gansel, Dani Levy, Daniel Lwowski, Stephanie Martin, Josef Rusnak, Til Schweiger, Massy Tadjedin, Gabriela Tscherniak | 115 minutes | drama, romance | Actors: Keira Knightley, Helen Mirren, Luke Wilson, Jim Sturgess, Mickey Rourke, Jenna Dewan, Emily Beecham, Dianna Agron, Veronica Ferres, Diego Luna, Iwan Rheon, Charlotte Le Bon, Sibel Kekilli, Nolan Gerard Funk, Julia Dietze, Sylvester Groth, Hannelore Elsner

Since the first eulogy for a metropolis was published in 2005 with ‘Paris, je t’aime’, a true film franchise has emerged, in which the dynamics of the city served as the backdrop for love stories in the broadest sense of the word. Always directed by a different filmmaker, in his own style, but always with the metropolis as the radiant center. ‘New York, I Love You’ (2009) remained in the same level as its predecessor, but ‘Rio, I Love You’ and the somewhat under-the-radar ‘Tbilisi, I Love You’ (both from 2014) were less able to make ‘their’ city shine in all its facets. ‘Berlin, I Love You’ (2019) has become a disjointed whole that does not convey the unique atmosphere of Berlin, but the French producer of the series, Emmanuel Benhiby, has already announced three new parts that take place consecutively in Shanghai, Jerusalem and Rotterdam (!).

We can already see things go wrong in the title: why isn’t this ode to Berlin simply called ‘Berlin, ich liebe dich’ (and why is hardly any German spoken at all?)? The German capital is a fascinating metropolis, not so much for its beautiful buildings but for its unique energy. A city that has been torn apart both literally and figuratively and is now making a new start. A place that breathes history, but at the same time has torn itself free from it with an unshakable free-spirited spirit. In Berlin, people don’t look back, but ahead: it is a city on the move. And in which other metropolis can you find oases of peace right in the center, while the dynamics of the nightlife await you right around the corner? In a film in which Berlin plays the leading role, you expect an elusive energy or at least a glimpse of the diversity that this city has to offer. But ‘Berlin, I Love You’ is a disjointed patchwork of segments that barely express any love for Berlin; in fact, most of the chapters could have been set in any city in Europe or North America.

Like every film in this franchise, ‘Berlin, I Love You’ has a common thread: a storyline that returns between the acts and that should connect the different segments. Here’s a wafer-thin tale about two buskers – Berliner Daniel (Robert Stadlober) who walks through the city with huge angel wings and Sara (Rafaëlle Cohen) from Israel – who gradually begin to feel more and more for each other. Although the story is not much and the acting could have been better, this is still one of the more successful aspects of ‘Berlin, I Love You’ because filmmaker Josef Rusnak shows us the city in any case. Daniel’s wings are a nod to Wim Wender’s classic ‘Der Himmel über Berlin’ (1987) and hopefully we don’t need to explain the symbolism behind the fraternization between a German and an Israeli.

Then we get a depressed Brit, played by Jim Sturgess, who, torn by heartbreak, plans to take his own life but is strangely stopped by a talking blue BMW. In the ‘Under Your Feet’ segment, Keira Knightley plays a social worker who takes in a refugee who is temporarily out of touch with his own family, only to get into a fight with her mother (Helen Mirren) who wants her on her heart. keeping work and private life separate. In the most bizarre (and least related to Berlin) film, ‘Love Is in the Air’, fifty-year-old Mickey Rourke flirts in a bar with a girl who could have been his daughter. Much lighter, but more catchy is ‘Berlin Dance’, in which Jenna Dewan plays a lost tourist who manages to find her way through the city through musician Nolan Funk and the famous orchestra leader Max Raabe.

In ‘Me Three’, four women come together in a laundromat to share how they are oppressed, abused or mistreated by men. This cutscene exemplifies the imbalance throughout the film, as for reasons unknown, the laundromat turns into a bustling club over time. ‘Hidden’ follows a refugee (Alexander Black) who goes into hiding from the police at a brothel. Diego Luna’s transvestite in ‘Sunday Morning’ gets far too little time to really leave a haunting impression and the exhausted Luke Wilson who falls for puppeteer Dianna Agron is simply soporific. Only at the end – with Sibell Kekilli as an unemployed journalist who tries to earn some money as a taxi driver when a great story literally ends up in her back seat – does ‘Berlin, I Love You’ show some recovery.

Where in ‘Paris, je t’aime’ and ‘New York, i Love You’ big names such as the Coen Brothers, Alfonsó Cuaron, Gus Van Sant, Alexander Payne and Fatih Akin were still roped in to write and/or play a segment – and even ‘Rio, I Love You’ could count on big names like Guillermo Arriaga, Fernando Meirelles, Carlos Saldanha and John Turturro – ‘Berlin, I Love You’ has to make do with lesser gods. The most famous names are Massy Tadjedin (writer of ‘The Jacket’, 2005), Til Schweiger (who we know mainly as an actor), Neil LaBute (‘In the Company of Men’, 1997) and Agron, who directs himself. Not that unknowns by definition deliver less good work, but it often gives a production like this a ‘boost’. It is of course a challenge to show and honor a city in all its facets, especially when it comes to a metropolis as complex as Berlin. ‘Berlin, I Love You’ does not do justice to this fantastic city at all. It wouldn’t have mattered that much if the segments were worth it in their own right. Unfortunately they are not. The characters don’t touch us, their romances barely appeal to the imagination and it has little to do with Berlin. This fascinating city definitely deserves better!