A film of rough beauty, with second-generation migrant workers behind and in front of the camera. A comedy, even though—and precisely because—the topic is a serious one. A thoroughly astounding debut, playfully light and meticulously observed. A document from the urban wasteland of Berlin, a feature film of revealing wit and a hope for cinema. For audiences who don’t want to always see the same thing.

[...] We learn a great deal—in a playful way, as if incidentally, mind you—about the makers and thus about us as well, about our country and the wasteland of Berlin. A stroke of good fortune, this film.

[...] The film sends no angels fluttering through the skies of Berlin, and raises no admonishing pedagogical finger. Nor does it use its imagery as material for a clean political argument (a familiar tactic from the genre of the asylum seeker film). IN DER WÜSTE is a film to observe and listen to.

A day in the lives of Fernando (Claudio Caceres Molina) and Timor (Mustafa Saygile), two unemployed young men. The characters are marked by contrasts: the Chilean proud but despairing, the Turk stubbornly optimistic, a Lebenskünstler, a master in the art of living. It is from these contrasts that the film derives its wit and tension. But Fernando and Timor have something in common: the German language as means of communication. And a sense for the small oases in the great wasteland of Berlin. A survival strategy—for the next 24 hours, at least. Objectively their situation becomes more and more bleak, yet they manage to maintain courage and hope for one more day.

The film depicts minor, insignificant experiences, which is exactly where significance lies. Major, for example, is the amount of 45 marks plus a cup of coffee when the fridge is empty, the electricity cut off anyway, and the money run out. Major, too, is their plan to donate blood, and the way there a long, hard road. For it turns out that fare dodging is still not a matter of course and has even become a moral issue for the Chilean Fernando. On the Line 1 platform in Kreuzberg, Timor, cheerful and matter-of-fact: “I got checked the other day. They looked me in the behind and inspected my personal info.” Fernando, resolute: “I won’t let them look me in the ass.”

Their path continues beneath a railway overpass. It is a route paved with obstacles, and they are overcome. Time to get things off their chest. Timor’s dad wants his children to speak Turkish amongst themselves and not German; he wants to listen.

The blood money makes it possible to take out a couple of girls. And the survival strategy says: immediately. The disco is a bust—they are stopped at the door. Because of the grubby sneakers? But the Germans are all getting in. Well, what then? The movies (eight marks, Fernando’s suggestion) or Quasimodo (15 marks, Timor)? The decision is made for an evening with Jocelyn Bernadette Smith & Band, the one with the gap in her teeth. On stage in leather pants, white shirt, glitter belt, rings, clips and the story of the Midnight Lover.

Previously laconic and sparing with concise cuts, the film now descends into euphoria. The moral crisis of the unequal foreigners is resolved in this place. It is a dramaturgical turning point, with one-tenth of the film’s total length going toward the music clip. Afterwards, the scenes become longer and softer, and Fernando goes to bed with Anna.

It may be true that the flow of images occasionally falters somewhat. But this doesn’t impede the greater impression of the film: of auteurs telling of their lived lives. Director Rafael Fuster-Pardo came to Germany from Barcelona at the age of ten to live with his parents, first-generation migrant workers. For ten years he worked in Lübeck, as a building designer in engineering firms. IN DER WÜSTE is his first feature film following his studies at the German Film and Television Academy.

If the film’s auteurs had relied on the so-called rules of the profession, IN DER WÜSTE would never have made it into theatres. Assistant director Hermann Greuel founded his own distribution company (Oase) especially for the film. And the central actors are convincing precisely because they don’t have the familiar bearing of established pros. Director Fuster-Pardo found them via a classified ad in Berlin’s "tip" magazine, formulating the text in such a way as to leave all possibilities open: “Looking for a Turkish and a Latin American man of about 25 years.”

Dietrich Kuhlbrodt

First published in the magazine “Szene Hamburg”, August 1988