Nachttanke

It is not the playhouse that provides a compressed version of real life, but the filling station. ‘Das Leben ist eine Tankstelle.’ At least in the view of Samir Nasr, who observed the BP station in the German town of Ludwigshafen in 1998 to capture life in all its aspects. It is the summer of World Cup soccer, an event that runs through the film and links the many nocturnal visitors. Three Turkish kids in their BMW, always ready to pull their knives, often visit the filling station on their night-time roaming. Taxi-driver Wolfgang, whose business is looking down, drives his night-time loneliness at the filling station. Frau Kade drops by every evening to give everyone a Jägermeister. A disappointed soccer fan throws his flag in the rubbish bin and a young couple doesn’t even know a match was being played. A transit point for one is a haven of refuge for another. Nachttanke, strictly more a documentary than a feature film, shows encounters that are as unlikely as they are fascinating. Nasr manages to evoke a special and direct involvement with the people he films, turning them into characters. Funny, tragic and painful: the film is like a piece of Germany sketching a picture of the end of the Kohl Era.