Cowboys and Communists

Rating:

* * * *

Verdict:

Low-budget documentary about the arrival of a nightclub in a quiet East Berlin neighbourhood is smart, fascinating and empathetic.

The timing may not be the best, in the middle of the film festival, but this is a welcome and deserved return season for a natty and absorbing documentary by the Wellington filmmaker who made the

Flight of the Conchords' Texan Odyssey

in 2006.

Here she is in Berlin, initially fascinated by White Trash Fast Food, a burger bar-cum-ubercool heavy metal nightspot in East Berlin (guests include Mick Jagger) run by an American artist, Wally Potts.

But she finds a far more interesting story when she meets Horst Woitalla, who lives in an upstairs apartment and who wants to shut the place down.

Horst, a former journalist and plainly one smart guy, was a devoted Communist: the day the wall fell, he peered through and scurried home. But 1989 made him an instant anachronism.

Feast's film doesn't settle for easy binaries: the dour ideologue vs the free-market buccaneer or, for that matter, the native vs the invader. In the clash of cultures she finds a metaphor for the problematic arrival of market forces in state-run economies _ and, along the way, discovers that Wally and Horst have more in common than they realise. Shot on a non-existent budget _ the film gained funding when it was in the can _ this is a engrossing yarn spun by a woman with a very human touch.

Peter Calder

Cast:

Wally Potts, Horst Woitalla

Director:

Jess Feast

Running time:

64 mins

Rating:

M (offensive language, nudity)

Screening:

Academy