Alfred Döblin’s 1929 novel about small-time criminal Franz Biberkopf’s gradual descent into the darkest recesses of the Weimar Republic was adapted into a 1931 film co-written by Döblin and directed by Phil Jutzi, but more memorably as a fifteen-hour 1980 television miniseries by Rainer Werner Fassbinder. Writer-director Burhan Qurbani’s 2020 updating of the tale, divided into five chapters, takes only three but feels much longer.
Biberkopf has become Francis (Welket Bungué), a refugee from Guinea-Bissau who barely survived the journey from Africa and made his way to Germany. After losing a job in construction, he falls under the influence of Reinhold (Albrecht Schuch), a seductive but malevolent drug dealer who recruits pushers from among the immigrants for his boss Pums (Joachim Król).
The tall, handsome Francis seems a perfect choice, but he insists he wants to be a good man rather than a bad one—one of the major themes of the novel, repeatedly invoked here—and refuses to get involved in the trade. Desperate for income, he agrees to serve as Reinhold’s general factotum, preparing meals for the crew that he wheels out to the park where they ply their trade. Before long, however, he is drawn into the business, the change symbolized by his decision to be called Franz. He begins frequenting clubs where he can meet women for his boss’ twisted pleasure, but the increasingly jealous Reinhold betrays him, pushing him out of a moving car during a night of destructive revelry—an act that results in Franz’s loss of an arm.
Nursed back to health by Mieze (Jella Haase), a beautiful hooker with whom he falls in love (and who narrates the story of his downfall), Franz reconnects with Reinhold, only to face ruin at his hands—though an epilogue tries to mitigate the gloom. Qurbani’s film boasts an artsy surface, and Bungué cuts an imposing figure as Francis/Franz, but its repetitiveness becomes tedious, and the female figures are all treated as pathetic sex objects rather than credible characters. Only Schuch is an unqualified success, making Reinhold so convincingly slimy that one is incredulous over his ability to draw others to him and control them so effortlessly.
This attempt to relocate Döblin’s tale to the present is ambitious, but a considerable disappointment; Fassbinder’s magisterial version remains supreme. The sole extras are the theatrical trailer and a brief introduction by Qurbani. Not a necessary purchase, except for collections in contemporary German cinema.