As a young film-maker, Chris Petit sought inspiration in a divided city – where composers were Stasi agents and a night out clubbing could end in a nuclear flash
It is 1984 and I’m being driven around East Berlin in a Jaguar XJ6, the only one in town. We are making Chinese Boxes, a cheap thriller with an incomprehensible plot about teenage drug deaths, Berlin gangsters and Us intelligence. The film’s budget is about three quid and, to save money, it is being scored in East Berlin, hence the driver of the white Jag, who is its composer – and, we learn later, a Stasi informer. But it seems anyone who is anyone is. We drink red wine from Bulgaria and talk about the unthinkable, reunification, known then as the German spring.
In those days, I was living in West Berlin which, by contrast, was less a city than an advertisement...
It is 1984 and I’m being driven around East Berlin in a Jaguar XJ6, the only one in town. We are making Chinese Boxes, a cheap thriller with an incomprehensible plot about teenage drug deaths, Berlin gangsters and Us intelligence. The film’s budget is about three quid and, to save money, it is being scored in East Berlin, hence the driver of the white Jag, who is its composer – and, we learn later, a Stasi informer. But it seems anyone who is anyone is. We drink red wine from Bulgaria and talk about the unthinkable, reunification, known then as the German spring.
In those days, I was living in West Berlin which, by contrast, was less a city than an advertisement...
- 7/12/2016
- by Chris Petit
- The Guardian - Film News
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