"I survived. Mum took me to my Gran and Auntie in a village near Hamburg. I've been clean for 18 months. It frightens me to think of Detlev. I often think of him. I'd like to give him some of my strength, and help him. But first I need the strength myself."

Christiane speaks from beyond the grave, over an image of the countryside in winter. At the end of Christiane F we see her in a toilet cubicle injecting herself for the last time before her head slides down the tiles and out of frame. The scene fades and reopens over snow-covered fields. The recovery is moving because it comes out of nowhere and is in no sense already implicit in the events we have seen or the psychology of the characters. It's a sort of millennial redemption fantasy, moving because we know in real life, as presented on screen, it could never have happened. What is more moving than a beautiful untruth?

"And he said unto Jesus, Lord, remember me when thou comest into thy kingdom.
And Jesus said unto him, Verily I say unto thee, To day shalt thou be with me in paradise."

(Luke 23, 42-43)

There is a complete break between the film and its coda, the same inapprehensible gap as between the squalid earthly life of the thief and his future in heaven. I find this moment of fantasy the only moving part of Christiane F. As for the rest of it, its mission is to demystify addiction, to force it to strip, in a way which leads to nothing in the end but bafflement.

In Charles Bukowski's short story Something About a Viet Cong Flag, the sadness of the washed-up drifter protagonist is conveyed all the more affectingly by describing what could never have happened, the fulfillment of his meanest hopes.

"Red pulled his switchblade and hit the button. The blade was flat across her nose, pressed it down.
'How do you think you'd look without a nose?'
She didn't answer.
'I'll slice it off.' He grinned.
'Listen,' said the guy with the flag, 'you can't get away with this.'
'Come on, girly,' said Red, pushing her towards the rocks

"... Red was fucking Sally. Leo watched. It seemed endless. Red went on and on.

"... There was a patch of shade and Sally sat between them.
'You know, though...' she said.
'What?'
'It wasn't so bad. On a strictly sexual basis, I mean. He really put it to me. On a strictly sexual basis it was quite something.'
'What?' said Dale.
'I mean, morally, I hate him. The son of a bitch should be shot. He's a dog. A pig. But on a strictly sexual basis it was something...'"

Or compare John Norman's chronicles of Gor, which so many intelligent people find endearing. They bring to mind the inadequacy and sadness which adults feel if children are unmoved by attempts to frighten them. The slave-women have names like Audrey and Barbara.

"'I will try to please you,' she said.
'In Port Kar,' I said, 'a girl who is not pleasing is not unoften bound hand and foot, and thrown naked, as garbage, to the urts in the canals.'
'I will try to be pleasing,' she smiled."

from Beasts of Gor, pg. 440

Suburban loneliness is powerfully conveyed by John Norman's long elaborations of its compensating dream. In the same way, Bukowski, in stories like Rape!, Rape! and The Fuck Machine describes the sordidness of socially-constrained fantasy and its secret yearning for love.

"Yes I like being raped. I knew you were following me. I was hoping. When I got on the elevator without you, I thought you had lost your nerve. I've only been raped once before. It's hard for a beautiful woman to get a man. Everybody thinks she's unaccessible. It's hell."

from Tales of Ordinary Madness