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Goodbye Berlin

Goodbye Berlin (Tschick)

Movie · 2016 · 11 people

Fatih Akın directed the 2016 German comedy-drama road movie Goodbye Berlin (German title Tschick; in Turkey Elveda Berlin). It adapts Wolfgang Herrndorf's 2010 novel, printed in 30 countries and sold in over two million copies, published in English as Why We Took the Car. The film drew mostly positive reviews in Germany and won the European Film Academy Young Audience Award.

The story begins at the start of the summer holidays in Berlin. Maik, a 14-year-old from a wealthy but fractured family, is left alone at home when his mother goes into rehab and his father disappears on a supposed business trip. One day Tschick, a Russian immigrant from his class, turns up at the door in a stolen Lada Niva. The two outsiders leave the city without a plan and drive across eastern Germany in the direction of Wallachia. Tristan Göbel, Anand Batbileg and Mercedes Müller star, with Friederike Kempter, Alexander Scheer, Uwe Bohm and Udo Samel.

Hark Bohm, Fatih Akın and Lars Hubrich wrote the script, and the film runs about 93 minutes. It premiered on 12 September 2016 at Berlin's Kino International and opened in Germany on 15 September and in Turkey on 30 September 2016. Akın's earlier Head-On (2004) had won the Golden Bear at the Berlinale.

DirectorFatih Akın

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Cast

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Uwe Bohm Uwe Bohm Actor · died at 60 Tristan Göbel Anand Batbileg Mercedes Müller Friederike Kempter Alexander Scheer Kai Ivo Baulitz Udo Samel Bella Bading Claudia Geisler-Bading Marc Hosemann

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Through different eyes

Cinephile Looks at script, editing and directing choices; keeps a distance from formula films.

Fatih Akın balances the weight of adapting a best-selling novel printed in thirty countries with the lightness of the road-movie form. After a hard-edged drama like Head-On, turning to two young outsiders' summer getaway may seem unexpected at first, yet the director's interest in characters on the margins carries on here. The road movie is by nature prone to being episodic, and in my view this adaptation too lets the links between its stops slacken in places, so the dramatic build-up never reaches full intensity. A script written by a team of three points to a careful effort to keep the novel's voice, and the European Film Academy's young audience award shows the tone reached the viewers it was aimed at.

Family Viewer Asks whether the whole household can watch it; cares about humour and heart.

A lovely summer film for teenagers, and it is no accident that its award came from young audiences. But parents should know a few things: a fourteen-year-old gets into a stolen car with a classmate and sets off on a trip with no plan, while his mother is in rehab and his father is nowhere to be found. It is not for young children. Watched together with teenagers, it can start a good conversation about friendship, loneliness and responsibility.

History & Society Lens Asks about the period, the social background and what the work reflects.

Goodbye Berlin puts two different kinds of exclusion in the same car: Maik, the left-alone son of a wealthy but broken family, and Tschick, the Russian immigrant from his class. One is pushed to the edge not by poverty but by neglect, the other by being an immigrant. Routing the trip through eastern Germany also brings the provinces beyond the big city into the frame. The film handles these themes through two boys' friendship rather than a heavy social thesis, and for anyone curious about what it means to grow up in Germany with an immigrant background, Fatih Akın's perspective carries extra weight.

These are not reader reviews: they are short editorial takes written from different viewer perspectives with AI assistance. Reader reviews are below.

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