Die Geschwister [Brother and Sister] *** (2016, Vladimir Burlakov, Julius Nitschkoff, Irina Potapenk) – Classic Movie Review 13,422 

The 2016 romantic drama Die Geschwister [Brother and Sister] is a Berlin film about a nice loner, gay as it happens, longing for love apparently, who gets caught up in a trap by a couple of total users.

Director Jan Krüger’s 2016 romantic drama Die Geschwister [Brother and Sister] is a Berlin film about a nice loner, gay as it happens, longing for love apparently, who gets caught up in a trap by a couple of total users. It is a chilly, edgy and deliberately awkward but carefully detailed and strongly involving film, mostly about controlling, manipulating and using people.

It is set in Neukölln, a buzzing, trendy district in Berlin, where living space is at a premium and people, many of them immigrant, some illegal, are desperate for rooms, and where without proof of credit worthiness and salary there is no chance of a renting a home. It could be set anywhere, but it is good that it is set there, because we get to know town pretty well, and understand its appeal and downsides. It must have recently still been up and coming, but now its time has come, and it’s clearly fashionable, which comes at a price.

Moscow-born Vladimir Burlakov stars as the capable and appealing Berlin loner Thies, who works for a smart real estate management company and takes great care that all the rules are properly upheld (he’s even a bit OCD about it). At least that is until he meets attractive-looking homeless foreign users Bruno (Julius Nitschkoff) and Sonja (Irina Potapenk) when he shows them around an apartment to rent. Later, Bruno suddenly turns up unexpectedly in the street and instantly flirts with Thies, playing with his emotions, absolutely sure of who he is and what he can get out of him.

Throwing caution to the wind, Thies provides the suspiciously dissimilar siblings with a flat rent free of charge with no paperwork, no normally necessary contract, and starts a hot sexual affair with the brother. Step by step he becomes more deeply immersed in the secret of the couple with unclear residency status in a city everyone wants to live in. Bruno turns on the charm and Thies is hooked, despite himself, his caution and capability, even after he catches the couple sleeping together and finds the girl has Russian writing in her notebook. Are they Polish at all, as they say? Are they siblings at all, as they say? Is Bruno gay at all, as he says?

It soon becomes clear that Bruno is obviously just using Thies for housing, he doesn’t give a damn, and that Thies is locked into a destructive and disastrous one-sided relationship. One-way love. But what is Sonja up to? She’s just using too, but she doesn’t have the same leverage on Thies that Bruno does. The siblings, if that’s what they are, come as a pair though, somehow inseparable, another dreadful headache for the suffering Thies.

So, yes, bad things happen to good people, however careful. The film ain’t that cheery, and it isn’t really a romantic drama at all, but it is perceptive and clever, and engrossing. It does ask a lot of questions, without providing a single answer, which might be frustrating, or maybe just subtle. With Vladimir Burlakov playing him so appealingly, with his sad eyes and downcast look, you want a happy ending to this story for Thies, even though you know darned well there can’t be one.

Die Geschwister translates as Siblings.

© Derek Winnert 2025 – Classic Movie Review 13,422

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