Sonnenallee

When you haven't watched a movie because you thought it would be way too dramatic ... and it turns out it is more a comedy. I finally came around to watch this. German movies can be good and can be bad - which I reckon is true for any other countries movies too. But when you have to decide what to watch, there was a time where I just wasn't ready to experiment with German movies - so that is on me.

Having seen this the other day, I have to admit, the beginning alone with the main character walking on the street, with all the east/west conflict (do not confuse this with East Coast and West Coast rap battle/war) - a subject that Germany likes to explore in movies. And when it is done with such an ease as here ... well everyone is happy.

i laughed the whole way through. the no-name actors gave this film a breath of reality, and after this triumph, i'm sure we'll see much more of them. it would have been easy for this film to bog itself down in the muck of trying to do something really serious with the subject matter and situations, but it remained light and playful and self-mocking. i was actually scared by how much the characters reminded me of my own family! i'm not sure what that says about me, but it makes for some hillarious scenes in the film. everyone should see this comic gem that proves germans have a great sense of humor and can laugh at themselves along with everyone else.

When I saw this movie I was in Germany for a period of studying with my university, and in the first days I was there, we attended a small course to let us know something more about German culture... anyway, in those first days our teacher proposed to see this movie, because she thought it could be useful for us, and she was right!! I didn't understand all the things the characters said ( I didn't know so good the language at that time ), but I could understand the major situations and make myself a small idea of the atmosphere the people in East Berlin lived in... the great thing is that they make it not with a drama, but using irony, awkward situations and lots of fun!! I will see it soon again, but I recommend it to everybody if someone wants to laugh, but also to think a bit about the problems the totalitarianism brought with it. Ciao dall'Italia!!

The movie is located in a Berlin street of the 70's - the Sonnenallee. The street is divided by the Wall. Micha and his friends live on the other side of the Wall - in the East.

This movie shows us that DDR-Kids were not very different from those in the West. They are not interested in politics or communism, but in what is much more important: SEX DRUGS AND ROCK 'N' ROLL!

In addition to this interesting insight into everyday life in the DDR the movie is really funny. There are so many comedy elements in it. There is for example a scene in which a East German soldier tries to explain to a West German why the Eastern radio is superior to the Western technology - it has less functions and is therefore easier to handle. And the disastrous party is just great... But - just watch it!

As an American who lived in former East Germany for a time, I was impressed by the way this film portrayed the ambivalence many Ossis felt about the fall of the Wall. The characters were more nuanced and their treatment more sensitive than that seen in the more popular Goodbye Lenin which, while a good movie, is more about the character's relationship with his mother than it is an accurate portrayal of life in East Germany. Goodbye Lenin seems to reduce the Ossi existence to communist commodification -- to be an Ossi is about what kind of pickles you eat -- whereas Sonnenallee allows its characters to be much more than consumers. In interviews with the makers of Goodbye Lenin, they have mentioned that much of their inspiration for their treatment of East Germans came from TV shows on East Germans.... Sonnenallee presents the eastern life without the extra refraction of the television screen.