Summary
We Children from Bahnhof Zoo is not character development; it’s character dissection.
This review of Amazon’s We Children from Bahnhof Zoo season 1 contains no spoilers.
If this Amazon series is anywhere close to Christiane F.’s memoirs, then it is truly horrifying. The entirety of this series is dealing with children; it’s easy to forget when the cast is played by actors in their 20s, and it’s a sobering experience every time the series slides in a gentle reminder. The adapted memoir follows Christiane and her friends as they navigate a world of heroin addiction and sexual abuse. This series feels light at the start, but it is not for the soft hearts — it’s truly a hallowing experience.
And that’s not to say it’s not worth the watch, but there’s plenty of uncomfortable moments that make you grimace. The series highlights heroin and sexual abuse to a cyclical and sickly level, but at the cost of minors in Berlin. Each character has their own dark world — they are a product of their own demise, whether that be family dysfunctionality or their own environment. Each character’s personalities are laid out on a table and exposed — We Children from Bahnhof Zoo is not character development; it’s character dissection.
The adapted memoir is not merely through the lens of Christiane F, although it’s abundantly clear that this is her story; the series does well to honour the conflicts of each young character without compromising the author. The main strength is the start; where the teenagers highlight their burdens but, on the other hand, emanate their innocence — the first chapter sees the young kids attend a nightclub named SOUND, and the music overawes them — this is probably the most innocent you’ll see them all series — from here on in, there are many betrayals of their own wellbeing.
At 8 chapters, We Children from Bahnhof Zoo season 1 does more than enough to get its point across, meaning it also gets quite repetitive; there’s only so many times we can observe the pitfalls of heroin abuse and its link to prostitution; the series well and truly hones in that message, and how easy minors can be placed in the system due to an undesirable environment; perhaps the Amazon series could have been six chapters.
As far as coming-of-age stories come, this is dark, but it’s well worth adding to your watch list.
