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Movie Review: Good Bye, Lenin!

Delusional old Germans are more than just cute.

by A. Rosenbloom | 2004.04.22

As I was leaving the screening of Good Bye, Lenin!, an elderly couple turned to each other and proclaimed that it was “…one of the cutest movies in a long time.” Now I do not disagree entirely; the film has an amazing amount of charm, and its handsome cinematography and actors are not exactly hard on the eyes. I just feel there is something much more to Wolfgang Becker’s award winning film than “cuteness”. Though it does reflect a single incident in history, the collapse of the Berlin Wall and Communism in Europe, but it seems to be saying something a lot deeper about they ways and reasons we fight off change.

The story concerns Alex, a teenager growing up in Communist Berlin during the late 1980’s, and his trials and tribulations taking care of his sick mother. Just before the collapse of the Berlin wall in 1989, Christiane, Alex’s mother, sees her son being beaten by the police and falls into an eight month-long coma. The reason is never clear. Perhaps she was shocked to see her son in the arms of the police, or maybe it was the realization of the brutality of the government forces she loved so much.

Quite a bit happens during Christiane’s coma. Capitalism invades the newly unified Berlin, and everything around her becomes updated. Alex loses his job at a TV repair shop only to take a job installing satellite television systems. His sister Ariane leaves college to get a job at Burger King, and their apartment’s utilitarian furniture is replaced with modern fare. All of this goes unnoticed by the sleeping Christiane, and it is not until Alex, who visits her every day, kisses his girlfriend (Christiane’s nurse) for the first time that she wakes up. The rub comes in when the doctor tells Alex that any shock to her system, like…say…for example the collapse of the system she served and loved since the departure of Alex and Ariane’s father years earlier, would cause another heart attack. Alex decides that he has to take her home to control her environment, and keep the secret.

He goes to great lengths to keep everything from his mother, and most of the tricks he pulls make up the charming gags throughout the film. He peels the labels off of newer international food products to replace them with the plain food his mother desires. He redresses the entire apartment in an attempt to remove any hint of capitalism. When she wants to watch television he enlists the help of his wannabe filmmaker best friend to create false news reports to keep the political changes a secret.

The heart of the film lies in Alex’s tenacity and his refusal to give up despite the overwhelming outside influences. Every time Christiane discovers something new, he devises a new plan to conceal the truth. An enormous Coca-Cola sign outside their apartment becomes an inter-party agreement with the Coca-Cola company. New cars and people are West German refugees fleeing the horrors of capitalism. One has to wonder if Alex goes to such lengths to help his mother or himself. Maybe he longs for the simple life he led before the wall collapsed.

It is true that the story depends on history, and the time and place are crucial to the majority of the jokes, however there is a much more universal appeal which reaches past Germany in the 1980’s. What will happen when Fidel Castro dies and the people of Cuba have to face the reality of capitalism? How will they deal with such a drastic change with corporations waiting off shore to turn it into an island Club Med? How do people in African countries react when they are responsible for choosing their leaders for the first time in history? Though life is tough, just as Alex’s was, will there be people who wish for the simple days of communism? It is tough to say how people will react to having their world turns upside down, and that is what Good Bye, Lenin! is most concerned with. Despite the charm, cleverness and uplifting message, this is a film that is far more than just cute.

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