I'm not saying it is new for German film, but definitely not every year flooded with such plenty of flicks like in the Hollywood. It was like any other similar themed teen flick, has all the same formulas, but what makes it special is it is being a German film. The coming-of-age road adventure based on the book of the same name. Luckily, there are plenty of elements of "charming oddity" such as the epic, empty landscapes of the Mark Brandenburg, or the boys listening to Richard Clayderman on the stolen car's cassette player. I had a distinct feeling of feeling more sorry for the father who didn't get a lot of gratitude for providing a luxury villa for his family, and who had to struggle with a wife who is yoyoing back and forth to rehab, and a pubescent son. Maybe the scenario of the affluent, but uncaring family has kind of lost its edge over the years. Not that I would have complained to have the run of the house for two full weeks after dad had handed over a nice wad of cash to me. Maik is a fourteen year old with fairly average problems: To his utter bewilderment, the attention of the most beautiful girl of his class eludes him (at this age, as a boy, I can attest that you are usually after girls which are totally out of your league), his father is emotionally distant (not that in puberty you have the need for long evening walks with your dad), his mother has a problem with drink (or never being able to get enough of the stuff). For that I thought it was a surprisingly conventional film, although one with a lot of charm. This is based on a renowned novel for young readers (which I didn't read) and was turned into a motion picture by what is arguably right now Germany's most famous director, Faith Akin. His surname is not written with "i" but with small "I". In Turkish we have small "I" and this field doesn't accept it. It is not possible to write Fatih Akin's surname in its original way. It is honest, cheerful, hopeful and very very sentimental. As I was watching the movie, I have never thought on their performances as "Oh no it is too exaggerated way" or "they are short for the role". Anand Batbileg (Tschick) and Tristan Göbel (Maik) play their role perfectly. There are many upsetting around two boy characters but all are experienced not in a melodramatic way but very truthful way like all we experienced when we were young. For me, the main outcome (if we need a message from every movie that we watched) is "to be yourself" and "to accept life and people around you as well as yourself". I like movies that not trying to exploit / (ab)use audience's weak points and Tschick (Goodbye Berlin) is also not trying to do this and set the audience free. The tune between sadness and happiness is very balanced. I think that the success of the movie is not trying to tell the story from an adult view, on the contrary, telling like a teenager who talks about what happened during the last summer. Tschick (Goodbye Berlin) tells a very ordinary story around two teenagers with an amazing beautiful way. Shame on me! I am deeply impressed his innocent language in telling the story of two boys and the other characters. This is my first movie that I watched from Fatih Akin. If not the revelation I was hoping for given the brilliance of Akin's best films ("Head-On", "The Edge of Heaven") it's still a likable coming of age film with it's own bittersweet take on the world. Of all Akin's earlier films probably the closes analog is "In July" (2000) – a familiar rom-com story given a personality through Akin's approach. Based on a popular young-adult German novel, "Tschick" is not as edgy, odd and original as most of Akin's films, but has just enough quirk and personality to keep it from falling into feeling too familiar, even if the basic story is a variation on something we've seen many times. ![]() Their bond is sweet, and somehow believable. His counterpart – the very hard to overlook Tschick - is an extremely tall Russian immigrant 'new-kid' with a silly hair cut and a bad-ass tough attitude. He just has the bad luck of not standing out enough to make him cool, so he's become a non-entity in his class. He's OK looking, not a bad kid, not a teacher's pet or a bad boy. There's no big, obvious reason Maik is an outsider. ![]() The odd couple of friends here are pretty endearing. Two 14 year old 'outsider' boys in Berlin form a friendship, and take off for the country in a stolen car, seeking adventure. Charming, amiable teen-age comedy with a few moments of sadness thrown in as well.
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