Breakfast at Berghain

OK… so… where do I begin with this one?

Let’s start with ‘what have I actually just watched?’ as my overriding thought as the credits roll.

That was pretty much the question running through my mind for a considerable portion of Breakfast at Berghain, a bizarre, outrageously camp and thoroughly bewildering little film that also had me wondering quite what the filmmakers had been taking when they came up with it!

And now rewind to the beginning…

The story begins with Rosie, a young woman living with her family in a rather peculiar household where she appears to be regarded as something of an inconvenience.

Her parents and brother seem perfectly happy to ridicule her, order her around and generally treat her as though she doesn’t particularly matter.

I realised about one minute in (helped by the exaggerated performances and theatrical reactions on display) that we’re clearly not dealing with anything resembling an ordinary family drama!

Things become even stranger with the arrival of Walter, a flamboyant visitor who proceeds to regale the family with tales of his adventures at Berghain, a German nightclub.

He describes wild nights filled with pumping techno music and his pleasure in indulging in an assortment of recreational substances. This immediately appears to capture Rosie’s imagination.

Before long, she decides that Berghain is precisely where she needs to be.

What then follows is, honestly, a totally surreal journey involving a strange librarian, an airline ticket belonging to a company that ceased operating years ago, an unconventional method of travelling by air (blue suitcase?) and a nightclub doorman whose admission policy proves to be something of an obstacle and is linked to his also rather bizarre past, I assume?

All perfectly abnormal, then!

The entire production is presented in an exaggerated, almost theatrical fashion, with deliberately over-the-top performances, peculiar camera movements and characters who seem to inhabit a world where conventional behaviour has been completely abandoned.

There’s an unmistakably camp quality to proceedings, and the filmmakers appear determined to make virtually every encounter as eccentric as possible.

I can appreciate absurdist humour, and I recognise that much of what we’re seeing is deliberately ridiculous, but recognising that something is intended to be funny and actually finding it amusing are two different things.

For much of the film, I found myself watching with a puzzled expression, wondering quite what was going on and where it all might be heading.

Don’t get me wrong… there were occasional moments that raised a smile, although one particular appearance by a sunglasses-wearing DJ of the canine kind actually made me laugh out loud.

Whether I was laughing because it was genuinely funny or simply because I couldn’t quite believe what I was looking at is another matter entirely!

Nevertheless, I can’t deny that the film has imagination.

Its strange collection of characters, abrupt changes of location and increasingly surreal situations certainly give it a distinctive personality, even if that personality is likely to test the patience of some viewers.

But underneath all the apparent nonsense and the increasingly bizarre direction the film takes, there does seem to be a more meaningful idea struggling to emerge.

Rosie begins her journey as someone who is largely dismissed and belittled by her own family. Her determination to reach Berghain appears to represent a desire to escape that environment and find somewhere she might actually belong. Or at least that’s how I interpreted things.

By the time we reach the conclusion, there’s a suggestion that she has finally discovered a place where she can be herself, surrounded by people who are every bit as unconventional as she is.

If I’m right in my deductions, then it’s a nice sentiment, really, even if it’s delivered through one of the strangest collections of images and situations I’ve encountered in quite some time.

The ending certainly helped me make a little more sense of what I’d been watching, although I wouldn’t pretend that every bizarre encounter suddenly fell neatly into place.

Breakfast at Berghain seems perfectly content to embrace its own absurdity, throwing together camp performances, surreal imagery, techno music and some decidedly peculiar humour without worrying too much about whether the audience can rationalise it all.

There’s definitely creativity here, and possibly a clever little message about acceptance and finding your own place in the world.

But while I can appreciate what the filmmakers appear to be attempting, I’d be lying if I said that I found the experience consistently entertaining.

The humour rarely worked for me, and much of the eccentricity left me more bemused than amused.

Still, I kept watching, partly out of curiosity and partly because I genuinely wanted to discover just how much stranger things could become.

And on that particular front, the film certainly didn’t disappoint!

Ultimately, Breakfast at Berghain is an imaginative, outrageously odd and occasionally amusing little offering that deserves some credit for its originality.

Whether its particular brand of surreal comedy will appeal to a wider audience is another question entirely.

Personally, I finished it with a better understanding of what it might have been trying to say, but still scratching my head over much of what I’d just witnessed.