B-MOVIE: Lust & Sound in West-Berlin (2015) KINO 2016

Mark Reeder relives his time in the West Berlin music scene and we are oh so much better for it. This is a stunning music documentary that is a must see for anyone who lived through the 1980's and loved the punk, new wave, rock, popular genres that were heavily influenced by the Berlin scene. Its a film for anyone who wanted to be there but couldn't and for anyone who was but can no longer remember.

B MOVIE was a rush of nostalgia for me. Being slightly younger than the films subject Mark Reeder, this film had memories flooding back. While I never traveled to out of the New York City area I had a rich musical life thanks to a brother who was way ahead of the curve on music and to a the various music shows that played all over regular TV and cable. Whether I knew it or not much of this music was filtering into my ears and eyes.

For me the joy of the film is absolute sense of being there. This isn’t just a documentary but a cinematic time machine. As I said all of this feels right. I suspect that is due to the film being a wonderful mix of familiar clips, mixed with lots of home movies and out-takes. It’s the behind the scenes stuff and home movies that seal the deal in making this feel real.

There is so much to love about the film that I am going to force myself to be brief. Ideally you should just go see the film because it’s that good. Actually it’s so good that I had to take three days to be able to put something together that was more than just WOW.

But I’ve digressed.

One the big reasons you should see the film is that watching it you get this wonderful sense of history arcing. We watch as Reeder tells us about all of these people descended on Berlin and then began to make music and art. We then watch as the various people peeled off and became big rattling the pillars of heaven. From this place came Tilda Swinton or Nick Cave’s Bad Seeds or the music influenced the music elsewhere. The film also isn’t rooted in one style of music. Yes it begins with a search for a member of Tangerine Dream but the film crosses into punk and industrial and poppy stuff like 99 LuftBalloons. We watch as artists like Keith Haring attacked the wall with paint or performance and how it somehow eventually fell.

It’s a wild ride that doesn’t seem a though the events were happening 35 years ago.

I don’t know if this is one of the best films of 2016 but it is one of my favorites.

A must see when it plays Kino this weekend.

For tickets and more information go here