While Andreas Dresen’s coming-of-age tale AS WE WERE DREAMING operates in a well-worn tradition, it has a raw energy and enthusiasm that matches the youthful passions of its characters.

Based on Clemens Meyer’s bestselling novel, the film tells the story of five friends caught up in the transformation of their hometown of Leipzig following the reunification of Germany. As they freewheel through the city in stolen cars, the film rushes along at a similarly furious pace, dividing its ungainly structure with flashy animated intertitles.

DREAMING mines a lot of atmosphere from its setting. The down-at-heel industrial areas of the city and Eastern bloc architecture of the suburbs contrast with the classical buildings of the city centre. It’s a city of the past with enough room in derelict cellars and factories to carve out some vision of the future. When the wall came down, the world broke open; this is emphasised through frequent flashbacks to the characters’ childhoods in the GDR, living regimented lives of propaganda and civil defence drills. The span of three years between then and the present might as well be a lifetime.

 … the film turns more melancholy and downbeat…

The story is told by Dani (Merlin Rose) in flashback, lending a certain amount of inevitability to the drama; we know that things will fall apart for the friends – Dani, aspiring DJ Mark, nerdy Paul, amateur boxer Rico, and acne-ridden tough guy Pitbull – it’s just a matter of how it happens. The main narrative spine concerns their efforts to set up and run a techno club in an abandoned factory building. This is where the film comes alive; it communicates that dance music was to the early 90s as punk was to the late 70s; embodying a rebellion and DIY spirit that inspired a lot of young people at the time. The club scenes are shot in chaotic and intense fashion, with the heavy strobe lights beating out a visual punctuation to the scene. The club brings more trouble to the boys, intensifying their running feud with a gang of neo-nazis, led by the sinister Kehlmann. This doesn’t build to a climactic showdown or triumphant victory – it dissipates as the film turns more melancholy and downbeat. The friends start to drift apart or turn on each other, as their youthful ambitions face setbacks or dead ends.

The big flaw in the film is the relationship between Sternchen/”Starlet” (Ruby O. Fee), Kehlmann’s girlfriend, and the boys. There isn’t enough room given for her as a character outside of a flattened ingenue/unknowable female role, complete with strip club scene, making for a clichéd presentation of the only female character of note in the film.

We end with Dani as the only one left, unsure of where to go next. It’s a story and denouement that we’ve seen many times before, but this techno bildungsroman commits to the familiar structure with enough gusto to make it a worthwhile experience.

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