Liebe Mauer

I haven't posted anything in a while, but this is too much of a nuisance to let it slip. Made with tax money scraped from half a dozen public institutions, soon to be force-fed to the fee-ridden audience of national public television, and no doubt eventually to be screened in schools, this soap opera, about the last days of East Berlin, is a complete waste of time and money. The GDR is portrayed as a quirky theme park run by clueless communist goons. Each and every character is given up to ridicule. "Beloved Berlin Wall" fails both as a period piece and as a love story. Small surprise the writer-director's previous experience is in toddler fodder like "My Brother is a Dog" or "Rudy, the Racing Pig". The leggy lead was the only thing that kept me from walking out. To make things worse, the theatrical cut is at least half an hour too long. While that's easy to fix, the movie itself is beyond salvation. When the closing credits finally roll, it's as big a relief as the Iron Curtain coming down.

This is not a masterpiece, maybe I won't remember it in two years, but I had a good time watching it on TV. This is not an historical piece, although you get an idea of the muddle that meant having Germany separated by a barrier.

I would say it's a chick flick set in the last days of the Berlin Wall.

The "bad" guys (those opposed to the love of the protagonist) are all unidimensional; and again, I didn't mind, because I understand this is not an historical movie (made me remember a bit of Billy Wilder's "One, Two, Three": he didn't give a damn about being politically correct with capitalists nor the communists.)

The leads are good in their roles, making you root for them and their romance; the secondary characters are funny and contribute with comic relief moments.

I would watch it again. 7/10.