Berlinale ’16: Alone In Berlin review

Alone In Berlin review: Some superb acting from its main players, but the film is let down by its overall tone and its under-cooked ending.

Alone In Berlin review by Paul Heath, Berlin Film festival, 2016. Alone In Berlin is the latest directorial effort from Vincent Perez, the actor-turned-director who most people will know as the man that replaced Brandon Lee in Tim Pope’s follow-up to The Crow, The Crow: City Of Angels. The Spanish-German filmmaker has come a long way since then with this, his sixth directorial effort.

Alone In Berlin tells the true story from 1940 Berlin where Anna and Otto Quangel (Emma Thompson and Brendan Gleeson) have just learned that their only son has been killed on the front line during World War II. The two previously supported Hitler’s politics, but now, after the regime has taken control following victory against the French, they realise that his promises are nothing but lies. In protest, the pair start to write postcards with Frei Presse scribbled across the top, along with anti-Hitler messages – like Kill Hitler! Stop The War Machine, etc. The pair then start to distribute said letters across the city, in numerous tenement buildings and random stairwells, obviously drawing the attention of the SS and the Gestapo, who, soon afterwards, start to investigate through Daniel Bruhl‘s relentless police detective.

The film focusses on quite an important subject, drawing from the writings of Hans Fallada and his final novel, written just a few years after the events that the feature depicts. The two lead actors, Thompson and Gleeson, are excellent in the film; near faultless actually. They, of course, adopt German accents to portray the roles of Anna and Otto, something that unfortunately didn’t seem to go down too well the packed Berlinale Palast, in the heart of Berlin, where the film was screened for us. Something didn’t seem quite right watching the film projected in the city where it set with an English actor and an Irish actor playing German roles with German subtitles popping up at the bottom of the screen. For me, after the first couple of scenes, I forgot about all about it and absorbed the film for what it was, as I don’t feel that this will be too much of an issue when it gets a release. Others didn’t let it go, and boos could be heard throughout the auditorium as the credits rolled.

True, this isn’t perhaps the best-presented feature on the horrors of the second World War, but it is interesting and welcomed that a group of filmmakers have tasked themselves with bringing a story to the screen that is told for the German point of view. Here, we witness normal-German people feeling the effects of the Nazi regime. We feel their pain on an individual basis through the eyes of everyday working-class characters. It’s a refreshing change.

Going back to the cast; Daniel Bruhl is brilliant as the troubled, though focussed police detective tasked by the SS to bring down the mysterious ‘Hobgoblin’ postcard placer. The cinematography is also really good with seasoned lenser Christophe Beaucarne (A Royal Night Out, Gemma Bovery) creating a dated feel to the film, which works wonderfully.

Sadly, the film just doesn’t come together fully as a complete package. Perez attempts to orchestrate Spielbergian moments as the net tightens on the ill-fated husband and wife, but never quite gets there. It lacks the tension that the material commands, and the ending simply sees the film fizzle out to a quiet whimper when it should have created an intense, deafening bang.

While not a disaster, Alone In Berlin could have so much better; a film that is only just saved by its two lead actors in Thompson and Gleeson.

Alone In Berlin review at the Berlin Film Festival, 2016.

Alone In Berlin will get a general release through Warner Bros. later in the year.