This Ain't California

This Ain't California is what the Germans would call a "sehr schöne Märchen."

There are some intriguing concepts here, but they are muddied by the needless flights of undeclared fancy, coming close to bad faith.

Fooling an audience should surely be done with honest and open mischief, not with sheepish postscripts from film-makers hoping we might have been hornswoggled.

A fun and frothy mock-doc with a message buried in its axle.

"This Ain't California" offers a vivid immersion in the hidden skateboarding culture of the former East Germany.

A trove of home videos, vintage commercial and propaganda footage and black-and-white animation dress up this energetic if somewhat unfocused look at the birth of skateboarding in the German Democratic Republic.

This would-be documentary involving skateboarders is an interesting piece of work.

It creates a tangible sense of time but not one that would have been missing from using actual archive footage -- which was apparently available. Regardless of that, This Ain't California does still function well as a spunky peek behind the iron curtain.

Whether faux found footage or not, This Ain't California is a joy ride, and not only for skateboarders or anyone else who experienced life on either side of the Berlin Wall.

A moving and energetic portrait, cushioned by a punching soundtrack, that poignantly tells the story of a carefree period in three teenage skateboarders' lives growing up in the German Democratic Republic.