Good Bye Lenin! (2003)

Communism has a bad rep sometimes. Yes, there was fear and state control and all the bad stuff, but in all honesty, the counterparts of the Cold War had imperialism (culminating in the german version of hell from the second world war) and racism and other ills - the first black person to space was sent by the Soviets, as well as the first man and first woman, fact worth thinking about.

But there is another, gentler side to the regime, in which many people believed and had some legitimate if naive reasons to do so. This movie is a sincere portrayal of Ostalgie, a nostalgic love of the communism, notwithstanding its faults. A version of it exists in many ex communist countries, from Yugoslavia (where given what came after its dissolution, and given the mild nature of the communist regime that gave populace much better lives they had compared to other communist countries or any time before or after, yugonostalgia is very strong) to post Soviet countries to East Germany.

Brain washed Americans and some other western people might find this strange but this is heartfelt, true and authentic phenomenon that they might well try to get to understand. This movie might help, so watch it with an open mind. You should, because it is a gem.

Fmovies: Today there is no more die Deutsche Demokratische Republik, there's no People's Republic of Bulgaria, no Yugoslavia, no Czeskoslovenska Socialisticka Republika, no USSR... The entire "Progressive World", apparently having reached the final stage of political and social self-actualization, decided there's no more place for it to develop into the material existence, and went altogether into Nirvana. They left a political vacuum, a socio-economic crisis, wars, misery, and all else that many of you remember, while others have just seen on TV.

I am born during the last years of communism, but don't remember much of it. What I clearly remember was the downfall of the system. The crowds, the demonstrations, the blue flags, people crying, singing "Freedom! Freedom! Time is ours! 45 years is enough!". My grandmother took me into her hands, so that two polish photographers took a picture of us (she later on told me), and yes, the day after tomorrow we would live like in a wonderful Hollywood film. We didn't. And my entire generation passed its childhood into a lingering crisis, which broke down the society, the values, the morals, people fled the country, as if it was infected with plague.

Today in the place of die Deutsche Demokratische Republik is Ost-Deutschland. A country, where entire buildings are empty, people having moved to the West. Investors don't chose the Ost for their capitals, they'd rather invest into Czech or Poland, where the workers are as qualified and several times cheaper. Today Bulgaria is slowly improving, and maybe in the next 200 years it will catch up the economic standard of the EU. Yugoslavia was torn by war after war, the Soviet Union collapsed into different countries, which had never been independent, Slovakia broke off from the Czech Republc, in search of its own Moravian identity.

And a dream that came to replace the slavery of oppression and Nazism, and that was meant to continue for a thousand years at least, collapsed under its corruption.

But the memory was fresh. The evils of corruption and concentration camps for political prisoners faded away, and only romanticism remained. Memories of a past that never was, or never should have been, or was, and had to be. Red t-shirts with yellow CCCP written on them became fashionable, referring to communism became a sort of a common identity for Eastern European students in western universities, nostalgia filled the hearts of many, and this was also expressed into the arts.

It was a very sad film. I recommend it to all of you, who remember, and don't remember, who know, and don't know, or would like to know, or don't care about, or whatever. It is not a Hollywood high-budgeted blockbuster. It's far from that, but it's touching, true, amusing, and sad.

This story has it all : family tragedy, growth (from child to adult and even growth as an adult), dealing with political and social change, and romance. I think the story gives one a good idea of just how much change occurred when the Iron Curtain fell over Eastern Europe and the difficulties and opportunities it brought. The story revolves around Alex, his sister and their mother. Their mother has a heart attack and then goes into a coma. During her coma, communism fell and then she wakes up. Advised by her doctor that she cannot take any form of excitement, Alex goes about creating the illusion that communism is alive and well. This often takes a comical twist on the differences between the communist east and capitalist west. There is also the subtle hint of discrimination by both sides against the other. In the end the story is about family and loved ones and what we are willing to do to make those around us happy. Go out and rent this movie.

-Celluloid Rehab

Good Bye Lenin! fmovies. 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.

Last night I watched it for the second time. I'd seen it at the cinema two years ago, then last night my boyfriend, who hadn't seen it, decided to rent it. I loved it first time round, I loved it second time round, maybe even a tad more than I did originally. With wonderfully engaging characters all round, the film is endowed with a great sense of humour, both visual and verbal (and those Europhobic old Brits keep going on about how the Germans have no sense of humour!), it's socially relevant yet easier to watch than a straight comedy. The script is intelligent yet accessible to anyone, even a shallow teenager with no attention span whatsoever... yet IT is never shallow. And most of all, it's a deeply moving little gem of a film which however never abuses its secure grip on the heart-strings. I could see even my boyfriend was dewy-eyed at some points! And so was I, even more than two years ago. A small but perfectly formed film, it's actually not as small as one might think at first impact. Love (specifically, filial love) is its main theme, treated in a schmaltz-free, fresh, non-superficial and a non-clichéd manner.

This was a good film, and I think it needed to be made. A way of life disappeared in Europe, perhaps forever, and it seems appropriate that the fall of Communism has thus been documented.

The basic premise of "Goodbye Lenin" is that the young man's mother is in a coma over the months when the Berlin Wall is coming down. She wakes up (oblivious) in united Germany, but as she is so fragile she cannot be allowed to know that everything she held dear has collapsed. What ensues is a comic and moving scenario - her son does his best to pretend that nothing has changed.

Yes, the movie is a little drawn-out. And most of the comedy is lost on non-Germans, or those unaware of the political climate in the region. However, there are clear universal issues to be considered; idealism, hope, family. There is one particular scene which I thought encompassed exactly how the main protagonist feels - he is at a bank trying to change his mother's old East German currency into Deutschmarks but the deadline has passed. He becomes aggravated by the sheep-like behaviour of his peers. After all, this is their culture being crushed by McCapitalism, but their individual vaunting ambition blinds them from doing something about it. Very refreshing to see this on the big screen.

All in all, "Goodbye Lenin" is a nicely-rounded statement of where the European film industry is heading, and it will appeal to most independent-minded people on both an artistic and political level. 8/10.