Good Bye Lenin!

The concept of this movie, which is that a young man has to do all in his power to stop his mother who is recovering from a heart attack learning of what's happened to Germany while she was in a coma, is absolutely delicious, but it's a premise that could easily go wrong. However, I'm pleased to report that it certainly didn't go wrong, and through interesting characterisation, a great script and some thought-provoking ideas; Good Bye, Lenin! is a winner all the way! An excellent ensemble gives way to a story that has a lot of heart, and one that makes it's points - both politically and otherwise - without the use of a sledgehammer. Good Bye, Lenin! is one of those films that is what you make of it; on the one hand, it's a touching and entertaining story of a boy's journey into adulthood and his love for his mother, but on the other hand; it's a biting political satire that intertwines themes of how our perception of certain truths can impact our lives.

Daniel Brühl, a young Spanish talent, takes the lead role as 'Alex', the young man at the centre of the tale. Through his subtle acting, Daniel is able to capture the determination and adoration that epitomise his character wonderfully. He is joined by the beautiful Chulpan Khamatova, Maria Simon and Alexander Beyer, who lend support to Brühl, as his girlfriend, sister and sister's boyfriend respectively, along with Kathrin Sass, who takes the central role of the mother recovering from a heart attack. I can't pick a single fault with any one of them. The setting of the fall of the Berlin Wall serves as a great place to set this story, as it allows the film to give a commentary on the changes of Germany's political landscape at the same time as allowing us to take in themes of family, love and the perception of truth that are abundantly clear. There aren't many bad things that I can say about it, and the only one really is that it can be a bit over sentimental at times. On the whole, however, Good Bye, Lenin! is an absolute treat and most certainly one of the better movies to have been released so far this decade.

While the walls come tumbling down, you have to build; as the progress will leave mother most un-thrilled, after falling in a coma, there should be no misnomer, to what will happen if she finds the party killed. It's a challenge going back to days of commune, all those delicacies so loved, have been consumed, no more censorship and lies (well, not as much perhaps), where the capitalist flag flies, we need to keep her in her room in a cocoon.

Still a wonderful piece of filmmaking with great performances and some genuinely laugh out loud moments and goes well with The Lives of Others as a companion piece, although not too much to bring a smile to your face in that piece.

I didn't have too many expectations for this film. My partner pitched it to me as a comedy, and I hadn't seen the trailer in a while so I went into thinking that's all it would be. Instead, it really was a sublimely sophisticated film.

I had the good fortune to see East Berlin first in July 1989 (there was *ZERO* hint that the wall would be down in 4 months) and then in February 1990. It was an amazing before and after, and I thought this film captured this very well. As a visitor to the East for several months that year, this film really brought back to me the East European Quiet Revolution when everything really did change.

The characters going through that change are of course an allegory for the changes all around them- '40 years gone! They sold us up river!' says an old man who represents those who 'lost' in the reunification contrasted to those who won-the youth. Similarly, the contrast of personal re-unification (the children and their father) vs that of the east and west is a wonderfully treated theme through the film…. And of course lies. Lies to comfort us, lies to deal with other lies. A very, very touching film.

I must say, people who haven't lived in one of the socialist countries can watch this movie, but they will never really understand it. Who hasn't personally experienced the fall of socialism, will never understand the mixed emotions that this film reminds viewers from Germany, Hungary, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Poland, and other ex-socialist countries of Eastern and Central Europe - the euphoria of freedom (but also the hardships our countries had to - and still have to - face) and the nostalgia for some aspects of life back then before 1989... So, I must say, I just loved the movie, but not because it is a particularly good one, but because it evokes such powerful emotions out of me. In the end, the protagonist comments, that he will always associate the memory of his mother with the memory of an era and a country that no longer exists. I exactly know what he means... I was 9 when socialism fell in my home country, so I belong to the last age group that experienced life in the socialist era. I am one of the last ones who remember what was life like then - and I don't regret that at all. In fact, that is a really emotional memory that I have, and I am proud that my country helped to remove the first brick from the Wall... Finally, let me recommend a similar film from Hungary - Moszkva tér (Moscow square)...

Just as Rip Van Winkle slept through the American Revolution and woke up twenty years later to find himself a citizen of a brand new country, so Kathrin Sass, an East German woman, slips into a coma on the eve of the fall of the Berlin Wall only to wake up eight months later a member of a capitalist society. This is the premise of 'Good Bye Lenin,' a clever and affectionate tale about truth, love and family ties that transcends all national borders and boundaries.

Kathrin, a woman who has dedicated her life to the perpetuation of Communist Party ideology, suffers a major heart attack that plunges her into a comatose state a few months prior to the dissolution of the land she knows as East Germany. While she is 'asleep,' governments tumble, barriers crumble and a whole new tide of Western goods and values comes flooding eastwards to a ravenous, eagerly awaiting public. Then she wakes up. Fearing that the shock of finding such a radically changed world will lead to a second heart attack, her loving son, Alex, devises an elaborate scheme to shield her from the truth and to make her believe that the world she lives in now is the same world she knew eight months before (the basic premise is not that different from the one in 'Jacob the Liar').

'Good Bye Lenin!' is an amusing regional comedy that derives its laughs from two basic sources: the near-slapstick nature of the charade Alex is attempting to perpetrate, and the script's satirical view of a society rushing madly to embrace the joys of unbridled consumerism they have been so long denied. Given its gimmicky premise, 'Good Bye Lenin!' could have emerged as a one-joke comedy were it not for the fine sense of irony and absurdity that writer/director Wolfgang Becker (working with co-writer Bernd Lichtenberg) has brought to the project. In addition, young Daniel Bruhl as Alex and Katrin Sab as Kathrin deliver expert, moving performances that go to the very essence of the mother/child relationship.

I must confess that this film, despite its generally upbeat tone, brings with it a certain rueful sadness that the filmmakers may not exactly have intended. Could it really have been a mere fifteen years ago that the events depicted in this film actually happened - a mere fifteen years ago that the future of the human race seemed so full of joy, hope and promise? Now, in a post 9/11 world - where sectarian hatred and international terrorism rule the day - this image of people coming together to cast off the shackles of bondage and embrace freedom seems already like a quaint memory from the long distant past. In a strange way, the film has become something of a relic in its own time, outstripped by a world that has long since moved on to bigger and more dire concerns. 'Good Bye Lenin' reminds us of just how long ago and far away the Cold War really was.