The Movie: “Pool of Princesses”

By the Queen of Free

This was a documentary?

Not fiction?

Horrors! What in the world awaits Germany if these lives are typical?

The “true” tales of three 15-year-old girls as filmed by Director Bettina Blumner over the course of a year in their sad, hollow world. All from single-parent families who care more about cigarettes than their children. Nothing is off-limits except “heroin and pregnancies” said one mom to her daughter.

The film takes place in a Berlin neighborhood over a summer filled with jobs, parties, truancy school, and no commitments. Sex, multiple partners, emotional detachment pervade a shallow, empty time. They float from hither to yon, restaurant to restaurant, guy to guy. One of the girls has a relationship which is not as superficial as many. They smoke incessantly.

What future lies in store for this almost abandoned group whose selfish, egotistical parents provide no direction or guidance which the girls yearn for and desperately need? Is it me placing my middle-class values upon them? Of course. Food for thought.

The movie received the 2008 German Film Prize for Best Documentary Film. It was screened at the Goethe-Institut Washington at 812 Seventh Street, N.W. Washington, D.C. in the best non-profit movie theatre I have visited.