We went to see Nachtschicht (Night Shift) mostly because it was shot in Berlin. Not so much a documentary as it is a video collage of footage shot by following various people with a video camera and encouraging them to express their rambling thoughts. I guess the idea that they were all people who did whatever they did mostly at night was supposed to tie the movie together, but I thought it was incoherent and dozed off several times. Two out of Five.
This film sounded awfully good in the synopsis. I’m guessing the director had some funding to go along with a good idea, and a talented cinematographer as well.
I rarely felt like I was in Berlin after dark. We got a plane, a train, several night shots of roads and parks and trees, a few abandoned buildings, a liquor store, and a duck. It could have been filmed in Dayton or Omaha. Almost nothing distinctively ‘Berlin’ about the film at all.
The director appeared not to work from any script. There wasn’t much evidence of film editing. Several people at the showing I attended got up and walked out. It was a Nebraska-line bore start to finish.
The next time whoever funded this film lays out cash for a project, it might be better to get a director willing to take a much closer look at a world city.
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