Berlin Alexanderplatz (2020 film)
The third adaptation of Alfred Döblin's influential 1929 novel of the same name, following one in 1931 and a 1980 fourteen-part miniseries, this iteration transposes the story to the modern day with an undocumented immigrant from West Africa in the central role.[1][2] It was selected to compete for the Golden Bear in the main competition section at the 70th Berlin International Film Festival.[3][4] Jessica Kiang for Variety detects some flaws in this update of Alfred Döblin's classic novel of masculine criminal crisis: ″Although promising a deep-cut dash of contemporary topicality by reimagining the main character as an undocumented African immigrant, there is the sense that the unimpeachable craft and performances — especially from rivetingly charismatic lead Welket Bungué — ultimately add up to just too slick a package.(...) For a film that is supposed to be a contemporary update, it can feel — especially in its ill-fated female characters, who are almost all either sex workers or one-night stands of Reinhold's — weirdly out of date.“Men like me have gone out of fashion,” says Pums at one point, and it will take more than a snazzy new set of clothes to complete the overhaul that Qurbani bravely, handsomely, but a little foolhardily attempts.