Berlin alexanderplatz review

The twin pillars of Alfred Döblin’s epochal 480-page 1929 German-language novel and Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s deeply influential 15-hour miniseries, first broadcast in 1980, together create an overarching shadow from which Burhan Qurbani’s relatively svelte three-hour contemporary reworking of “Berlin Alexanderplatz” struggles to escape.

Although promising a deep-cut dash of contemporary topicality by reimagining the main character as an undocumented African immigrant, there is the sense that the unimpeachable craft and performances — especially from rivetingly charismatic lead Welket Bungué — ultimately add up to just too slick a package.

Qurbani’s take starts off confident in the newness of its approach but soon comes to operate as a well-oiled, smoothly functioning machine for the manufacture of bad luck, fatal flaws and tragic, poetic justice. It misses out o