FILM: Aeon Flux
CITY: Berlin

I will hold my hands up now and state that this movie sucks like a cheap hooker! It’s crap, one hundred million dollars worth of crap in fact. What we have here is 90 minutes of Charlize Theron performing gymnastics and a plot with more pointless twists than a Chubby Checker song. There is however one saving grace to this waste of celluloid and that is the perfect city known in the film as Bregna…. I bet that you thought it was all CGI didn’t you! As much as I hated this movie –and I had to watch all of it because my date wanted to see it and because me being on a date is such a rare occurrence that I will do just about ANYTHING- but I found solace in the look and design of the world that Aeon Flux was set in. Who on earth would have thought that this perfect society was in fact Berlin?!? (Oh the irony!)

Aeon Flux’s Pad

The House that Aeon (Charlize Theron) and her sister Una (Amelia Warner) live in is actually the Barhaus Museum for Design which was designed by German architect Walter Gropius.

The Maze

The setting for the “maze” and government complex is the Berlin Windkanal, this massive concrete structure in Berlin-Adlershof was constructed in 1932 and used as an aerodynamic testing facility for German aircraft. After World War II the Soviets carried off all the equipment for their own use, leaving only the concrete structures which you can see in the movie.

Palace and Gardens

Who would have thought that a palace built for a Prussian king in 1747 would be a setting for a film set in the year 2415? Frederick the Great named his new summer residence “Sanssouci. In the film the striking large terraces below the palace are seen in the opening scenes as Aeon descends the stairs. The gardens surrounding the palace are also featured early in the film.

Government Complex

It may seem like a most unlikely choice, but Berlin’s beautiful Tierheim animal shelter facility plays a starring role in Aeon Flux. The Tierheim is often seen in the film as the main government complex. Several major scenes were filmed there. Although the filmmakers did add a few extras (including an entire grove of cherry trees!) and used a lot of background CGI, most of the scenes highlight the facility as is. This location can be found in Berlin’s Hohenschönhausen district. Most of these sites are already tourist attractions and can be found in guide books – should also mention the Mexican Embassy, check that out – and the architecture is so eye-catching that it almost make you glad that you saw the film, almost…. Okay so still not really.

Filed under: Berlin