AFI Review: Lou Reed’s Berlin

Rhonda Reinhart is a talented, organized, intelligent member of the D empire. (She works in our Special Interest Publications division.) Turns out, she’s quite the film reviewer person, as well. Here’s her take on the Lou Reed/Julian Schnabel project, Berlin.

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Before the screening of the Julian Schnabel rock doc Lou Reed’s Berlin, the AFIer introducing the film announced that the Angelika would be cranking up the sound. Rock and roll on the big screen turned up loud? I almost cheered. Unfortunately, the elevated decibel level couldn’t drown out the rustling and shuffling of the audience members who deserted the flick as early as 10 minutes in. Over the course of the screening, I counted at least 19 people who left the theater never to return. Too bad Lou Reed is no stranger to abandonment.

In 1973, the glam rock veteran released a dark concept album, the titular Berlin, that was a commercial flop. No one bought it, and he never performed it live. But in 2006, for reasons that are never explained in the film, Reed launched an international mini-tour in which he would perform Berlin onstage in its entirety. Berlin the film was shot at the show’s world premiere at St. Ann’s Warehouse in Brooklyn and features a smorgasbord of talented musicians: an orchestra, a youth choir, and backup vocals from contemporary blues mama Sharon Jones, just to name a few.

While Reed and friends sing and play, a video screen behind them flashes images of the bleak story Berlin recounts. It’s a tale of twisted love and twisted minds and the twisted things both can make a person do.

Not to suggest I’m any more enlightened than the folks who jumped ship or the ones who stayed just to be polite, but I’m glad I stuck around. Having never heard the album, I found myself oddly intrigued by Caroline, the troubled young female lead of Berlin. Wondering where her downward spiral would lead next and filling in the holes of her disjointed life story kept me busy during the rests. The recurring theme of abuse in her life-from victim of domestic violence to out-of-control drug user to unfit mother who has her children taken away-culminates in Caroline’s ultimate offense: the tragic combination of a razor, a wrist, and nothing left to lose.

As “Sad Song,” the appropriately titled closer, concludes the saga of Caroline and her doomed existence, we’re given some time to ponder the story and the music and the motivations for such a project. When the song stops, the lights go up, the Brooklyn audience applauds heartily, and the performers take their bows. And here, sadly, is where Lou Reed’s Berlin loses me.

Rather than end the film with the album’s finale, Schnabel tacks on Reed’s three-song encore, including the poetic and popular “Sweet Jane.” In concert, I’m sure this worked wonderfully-an unexpected coda that leaves the audience with a familiar tune buzzing in their ears-but on film, it felt unexciting and unnecessary. It may have softened the blow that was the darkness of Berlin the album, but in doing so, it diluted the film’s efficacy.

I also couldn’t shake the nagging question of why Reed let 33 years pass between the album’s release and the staging of the live show. When Berlin came out in the ’70s, Reed was just 31 (an age I’ve been muddling through myself for the past 11 months), and now he’s a mid-60s gent who’s been on this earth twice as long and has the facial crevices to prove it. I’d kind of like to think that the reason Berlin has found new ears is because its creator finally gained the confidence to pursue something he’d always felt passionate about, dissenters be damned. If that’s the case, then as long as Lou Reed is happy with it, I’m happy with it. — Rhonda Reinhart