Good Bye Lenin! (2003)
Good Bye Lenin!Germany 2003
Director: Wolfgang Becker
Language: German
A recent trip to Berlin reminded me of two things: I needed to improve my German and that I REALLY needed to re-watch Good Bye Lenin!
Set in East Berlin at the time of the fall of the wall and the reunification of Germany, Good Bye Lenin! tells the story of Alex Kerner (Daniel Bruhl), a young man whose arrest at a protest coincides with his model socialist mother (Kathrin Sass) having a heart attack and slipping into a coma. Eight months later the wall no longer exists, East and West Germany are united and Frau Kerner wakes up. Warned that any excitement could kill her, Alex, along with his slightly less eager sister Ariane (Maria Simon), throws himself into recreating East Germany in his mother’s apartment…
Through the main plot device of Alex’s deception, Good Bye Lenin! skilfully and often humorously explores how this period of great excitement, uncertainty, trepidation and promise affected ordinary people whose lives were turned upside down overnight. Some, like Ariane, willingly accept the change – in quitting her studies for a job at Burger King she seems to embody the acceptance of capitalist values. Other, generally older, characters complain of being ‘sold down the river’ and enjoy recreating the past for the unsuspecting Frau Kerner because it reminds them of ‘how things used to be’. Alex’s viewpoint, I suspect, lies somewhere in between. He may enjoy the new freedom that comes with unification, but his increasingly farcical quest to ‘protect’ his mother from a united Germany (pretending the radio is broken and swapping labels on food packets swiftly becomes bribing children to substantiate his charade and filming fake news bulletins) seems to indicate that he, too, has difficulty in coming to terms with his new way of life and wishes to maintain a concrete link with his past.
As one might imagine, political and social tension is never far from the surface of this film and there are some moments of truly powerful impact, such as Alex confronting a hospital doctor about the exodus of skilled East Germans to the better-paid West and causing a scene when a bank teller refuses to accept his East German money. However,
Good Bye Lenin! is far from politically biased and it pokes fun at both sides – surely the West is about more than fast food and Coca Cola and the East has more to offer than crappy clothing and Trabants?
Scratch the surface of Good Bye Lenin! and, as is so often the case, you are left with a story about people. Love, both romantic and familial, is a central theme and motivates Alex throughout. Deception figures strongly too, with Alex attempting to protect his mother from the truth, his mother (as is revealed in a heartbreaking plot twist) having deceived her children about her relationship with their father and Alex finally deceiving himself by creating the idealised socialism of his imagination, one of acceptance and compassion, in his final news bulletin.
This film works on many levels. Yes, its plot centres on slightly weightier-than-average subject matter but it deals with it in an engaging, amusing and often incredibly touching manner. Bruhl is outstanding as the well-intentioned but perhaps misguided little-man-lost protagonist, and an excellent supporting cast flesh the film out with humour and heart. A must see.
Maria Hall
this movie was a good movie alex is such a good boyy for helping him mother. the onl;y weird thing was how before his mother died she need about east amd west germany getting back together but she didnt tell alex she knew.