Berlin Alexanderplatz

Berlin Alexanderplatz (2020) is a German drama directed by Burhan Qurbani — watch online on iFILM. A free reimagining of Alfred Döblin's 1929 novel — one of the defining works of German expressionist literature — it transplants the story to present-day Berlin and opens with Francis (Welket Bungué), the sole survivor of a boat that sank crossing the Mediterranean without papers.

Undocumented and penniless, Francis falls into the city's shadow economy. The man who takes him in is Reinhold (Albrecht Schuch) — magnetic, parasitic, ultimately destructive. Francis came to Germany with a single vow: to live clean. Reinhold makes that impossible. Jella Haase plays Mieze, the one person who gives Francis's world anything resembling tenderness.

At three hours, the film moves at the pace Döblin's novel demanded. Qurbani doesn't update the plot so much as the question: what does a city do to a man who arrives with nothing and wants only a decent life? Stream Berlin Alexanderplatz (2020) online on iFILM.