A powerful performance of a dark masterpiece from Lou Reed. The performance gave the richness and dignity it always deserved.

Lou Reed's passing gives even more resonance to one of his misunderstood albums.

I saw Lou Reed play Berlin in London - sometime in 2007, I would guess. It was brilliant. This film of the New York concerts is likewise brilliant and is at least as good as the original album, if not better. Not much else to say other than I could not think of anything more fitting to play today.Lou Reed will be much missed.

I was mostly interested in Reed's music and was not thrilled with Schnabel's distractions.

I purchased this album in 1973 when it was released and have been delighted to see this artistic treatment of Lou Reed's work Berlin. It was amazing for it's poetry in 1973 and but misunderstood by critics. As lyrical and musical depiction of existence in a disintegrated culture post WWII, it's mood is haunting, disturbing yet real. Not for the faint of heart, but hey it's Lou Reed doing Rock and Roll.

Lou's singing is almost comically bad but his lyrics are so good it doesn't matter. In fact, maybe it helps. His band is amazing and Julian Schnabel's visual additions are captivating without getting in the way.

Berlin is probably one of the best albums ever made, and the film brings it alive in a very beautiful way.

Lou Reed performs his best album with the aid of the brilliant filmmaker Julian Schnabel in possibly the greatest concert ever captured on film. A beautiful vision of one of the most depressing albums ever recorded.

Not impressed w/ what I've seen of it

"Lou Reed's Berlin" is a concert performance by Lou Reed and lots of friends of his critically panned 1973 album at St. Ann's Warehouse in Brooklyn. The concert is enhanced by footage(featuring Emmanuelle Seigner) to tell the narrative of the concept album but director Julian Schnabel only goes halfway. A truly immersive multimedia experience would have been the way to go, for a lot of the images are projected onto the back wall behind Lou Reed which was never intended for that. In fact, the final songs work best with no projections or any other distractions. As with any concert film, simple is best and while the lack of audience reaction shots is refreshing, the camera technique is not the best. And while I usually do not recommend this, some interview footage would have gone a long way towards explaining the album's history. As it is, Julian Schnabel's perfunctory introduction provides only scant information. By the way, I am not particularly a fan of Lou Reed but went into this with an open mind. So, that probably explains why I have had the Aimee Mann song "Goodbye Caroline" playing in my head all day.

My favorite Lou Reed album, and one of the most depressing everwas finally played live last year. For the most part, Lou is faithful to the album versions in the performance, with some added jamming which turns a 50 minute album into a 70 minute concert. The direction is good, mostly performance, with intersnippets of "Caroline" who we just see in various states of manic happiness. Antony of the Johnsons provides some background vocal as well as the main highlight, an encore performance duet of the VU's "Candy Says". Definitely check that out.

If you can get past Lou's dry atonal vocal delivery, there is a lot of gorgeous music, lyrics, and imagery here. This is one of the most unique and beautiful concert films you will see. It's obviously very heartfelt. The band is top notch and they often drift into great grooves. The highlight is definitely the lyrics. It is almost operatic in its themes.

Exceptional concert/film. Of course you have to be a Lou Reed fan.

Great songwriting, creative arrangements, an androgynous back up singer with an emotional rendition of "Candy Says" stop the show. The only complaints I have are the superfluous "conductor" bouncing around in the middle of the stage and the moments where a 60 plus year old Lou Reed looks like he's going to doze off in the middle of a song.

This score is for the songs, really. What a depressing album! The film splices are a bit lame and some of the songs go on a bit long. But as a whole, it works very well.

beautifully filmed, love Schnabel's work. I never knew Lou Reed was such an excellent musician. Perfect performance by all parties, extra bonus that it featured Antony (of A. & The Johnsons), very visceral, emotional, honest and heartwrenching songs.

Wow! This concert film is amazing. But what do you expect when Lou Reed, Steve Hunter and Bob Ezrin get together to resurrect this masterpiece from 1973? Julian Schnabel (The Diving Bell and the Butterfly) puts it all together into a sumptuous visual/audio feast.

I wasn't so impressed. (Nor was Lou Reed. Sitting in front of me, he dozed off. Lori smirked while he slept.) The actors as characters were student-film terrible. Schnabel's tilt-shift lens effect was overused and gimmicky. The layers-on-layers, the same. The only exciting thing was watching Lou Reed (the man in the audience) walk in front of Lou Reed (the man on screen), resulting in Lou Reed projected onto Lou Reed, which was more than Schnabel could offer, and reeked of "meta, defined." Although I assume most audiences won't get to experience that little treat.

Lou Reed and his band performing one of his greatest album: Berlin. Director Schnabel adds some footage to give this one hour and twenty five minute concert a touch of colour and a way to create the story's atmosphere. Some good, moving sequences with the divine Emmanuelle Seigner, but much more confusion in the whole project...Anyway worth viewing for all the Lou Reed's fanatics, with the maudit singer showing all his charming songs.

[img]http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Film/Pix/pictures/2008/07/16/Lou-Reeds-Berlin460_276.jpg[/img] I'm a huge fan of Lou Reed's concept album [i]Berlin[/i], but I was disappointed by this concert. The compositions Reed creates for this live performance aren't nearly as lyrical as the original album. What really sinks this film, however, is the piss-poor concert footage. For instance...is there an audience? Except for some scattered off-camera applause, Lou Reed could just as easily have been making a video on a closed set. Still, Reed's intentionally glib delivery hits the right mood, and he shares a poignant duet of "Candy Says" with Antony Hegarty near the end of the film that makes the experience worth it (If you've never seen Antony Hegarty sing, you may want to close your eyes...he has the voice of a drunken angel, but the physical gravitas of a bad acid trip.)