No Ordinary Fool

The first part of this film establishes how 15-year old Bica (Katherina Derr) goes from being a street kid in Bucharest to being a nimble-fingered pickpocket in Düsseldorf. She lives in a dirty high-rise flat with three other kids of varying ages, as well as their Fagan-like boss Cristu (Patrick von Blume). The audience is quickly sucked deep into the rabbit hole of their miserable lives, where success is being able to hand over €500 per day to Cristu and where failure means a beating. Bica is the best of the four and also takes care of the younger two. However, waking up each day is merely to face the same risks and dangers all over again.

Indeed, when she robs a wallet in a shopping centre, she is pursued by fellow teenager Milka (Sina Tkotsch). Although Bica gets away, their paths soon cross again. After some initial hostility from the pampered and spoilt-rotten Milka, the pair strike up an unlikely friendship. Equally attracted to Bica is Milka’s occasional boyfriend Andrej (Igor Dolgatschew). Needless to say that the more Bica becomes drawn into their world, the greater the dangers that she is exposed to should Cristu learn of her forbidden fraternising. Whereas Bica lies about her background, Milka is obsessed with getting a nose job, childishly and incessantly complains about her parents, and finds it borderline incomprehensible that Bica does not own a mobile phone. Needless to say, she owns several.

Indeed, as these two worlds draw closer and closer to colliding with each other, the direction in which this film is heading becomes relatively formulaic and even flabby and improbable in the final third. However, where Martin Theo Krieger’s direction excels is in the sharp character portraits that it draws at the start. With a few highly effective scenes, he creates the diverse personalities of those who live in the apartment, from the bright, but taciturn Bica, to the awkward and angry Silviu (Tom Lass), to the diminutive and stuttering Nicu (Lucien Le Rest), to the anguished, paint-sniffing Constantin (Aljosha Horvat).

Moreover, it is to Kreiger’s credit that Cristu is not simply shown as some one-dimensional monster who preys on the weak and vulnerable. There are some moments where he reconnects with his humanity and there is the suggestion that he too acts out of desperation. However, the more that he tries to explain himself, the more pathetic and weak he becomes and it is only his brutality that keeps him in charge. That said, Keiger equally ensures that the audience will feel no sympathy for the man by the end. However, that comes too late to stop terrific mental harm being done to the children that he has so ruthlessly exploited.

On the whole, Beautiful Bitch is to be admired for both its ambition and the impressive performances that are obtained from a mostly inexperienced cast. However, a tauter, more focused film feels like it would have made a greater impact. In particular, the time spent contrasting the worlds of the haves and the have-nots only serves to distract the audience from the shocking thought that this form of modern-day child slavery can take place, virtually undetected, on the streets of our European cities.

By the way, I would like to think that the little girl who spoke her words backwards was the real guardian angel sent to protect Bica, as opposed to the angel that she first mistook Cristu for. If this was the intention, then it was a nice touch!