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This Ain’t California

✭ ✭ ✭ ✭   Read critic reviews

Germany · 2012
1h 30m
Director Marten Persiel
Starring David Nathan, Bill Clinton, Žaneta Fuchsová, Erich Honecker
Genre Documentary, History

A coming-of-age tale of three teenagers and their passionate love for skateboarding in the German Democratic Republic. The film follows its three heroes from their childhood in the 1970s through their teenage rebellion in the 1980s, ending with the summer of 1989, when their lives, and the country, changed forever.

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What are critics saying?

60

Total Film by

Though set in a divided country, it’s an effervescent period piece, edited with verve: Persiel combines recreations with archive footage, animation and home videos.

60

Time Out by David Fear

It ain’t bad, though all that detritus detracts from a far more interesting history lesson on repression and rebellion that’s left on the periphery.

75

Slant Magazine by Drew Hunt

While the film is deeply romantic and nostalgic, possessing a genuine reverence for youth and rebellion, it's also something of a tragedy.

90

The New York Times by Jeannette Catsoulis

Smartly incorporating Sasa Zivkovic’s sweet and simple animation, as well as an exhilarating, punk-infused soundtrack, Mr. Persiel extends the film’s appeal beyond hard-core skaters.

83

The Playlist by Kevin Jagernauth

Ultimately, This Ain't California is a movie powered by nostalgia, a propulsive kind of dreamy reflection to a time and place that may not have existed with events that might not have actually happened, but have all the reality of a life that was truly lived.

63

New York Post by Sara Stewart

A trove of home videos, vintage commercial and propaganda footage and black-and-white animation dress up this energetic if somewhat unfocused look at the birth of skateboarding in the German Democratic Republic.

80

Variety by Scott Foundas

“Dogtown and Z-Boys” meets “The Lives of Others” in This Ain’t California, a spirited not-quite-documentary portrait of the skateboarding subculture that flourished in East Germany in the early 1980s.

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