Diksha Sundriyal
In Netflix’s ‘Berlin,’ the audience gets a more intimate look into the life of Berlin, who plans and executes a heist of his own with a completely different crew. He jeopardizes the plan when he falls in love with the wife of the man he is supposed to rob. Not only does he put his crew in danger during and immediately after the events of the heist, but he also almost ruins everything by sharing an important piece of information about him when he mentions the Buenos Aires Cafe. Is it a real place? SPOILERS AHEAD
Cafeteria Buenos Aires is a Fictional Cafe in Madrid
The Buenos Aires Cafe that Berlin talks about is not a real place in Madrid. The location is entirely fictional, created solely for the purpose of the TV show. The scenes for the cafe were filmed in a real cafe in Madrid called Café Pavón.
Even though it might seem like a trivial piece of information, the cafe becomes an important plot point in the end. The place is first mentioned by Berlin when he is on a romantic weekend trip with Camille. She talks about her favorite places in Paris and her desire to take Berlin with her. In return, he tells her about the Buenos Aires Cafe in Madrid, saying that he always visits it whenever he is in the city. He loves their coffee.
Later, when Berlin runs away from Paris following the heist, Camille has no way to find him. She doesn’t even know his real name, and she can’t go to the cops because she has something else planned. It was while thinking about how to get in touch with him that she realized what he’d told her. She remembers the name of the cafe and knows that, sooner or later, Berlin is bound to show up there.
She moves to Madrid and keeps an eye on the cafe. It is five months later that he finally shows up. By now, it would seem like he has moved on from her, but when she confronts him, it turns out that he is still in love with her. He courted many girls since but he could never let go of Camille and his feelings for her. In fact, he claims that he’d been hoping she would show up at his door someday, and that’s exactly what she does.
Camille finds Berlin in Madrid and then follows him to his apartment, where she confronts him and later extorts him for money. Even though her schemes fail, Berlin displays his love by giving her the money she asked for. All of this shows that Berlin’s feelings for her, fleeting or not, had been real. He didn’t tell her much about himself, but he did give her a detail that later helped her find him. It was him leaving breadcrumbs for her to follow, and that’s exactly what she did.
Read More: Berlin: Are Gioconda and Le Reve D’or Real Hotels in Paris?
