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How to fool your mother when your country has gone
Many on both sides of the Berlin Wall were only too ready to embrace change in 1989 whereas one person missed it all because of being in a coma - and when that person is a committed socialist with a total belief in the socialist ideals and dogmas of the state, what does one do? Tell her just like that? Or else pretend that nothing had happened? Such is the unusual dilemma facing young Alex Kerner (Daniel Brühl), whose mother Christiane (Katrin Sass), as seen in (suitably grainy) family footage, immersed herself in anything to do with the Communist Party and its activities, including the Young Pioneers (the socialist equivalent of Scouts and Guides) shortly after her husband had fled to the West at a time when the German "Democratic" Republic (GDR) was rapt in the first flight of a citizen, Sigmund Jähn, into space on board the then-extant Soviet space station, Mir. <
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>On the 40th anniversary of the founding of the GDR, Alex joins many citizens calling out "Keine Gewalt!" ("No violence!"), as they demonstrate peacefully for change in their country. Christiane, meanwhile, is on her way to a party meeting, but gets caught up in the demo and witnesses her son being dragged away by the "Volkspolizei" (GDR police). Son's and mother's eyes meet momentarily, and she collapses in the street. Alex wants to help her, but he is unceremoniously dragged on board a truck and beaten as he and others are taken to the local jail. Unexpectedly, he is released without charge as the authorities apparently know who his mother is. He dashes off to the hospital, where he finds her with all manner of tubes connected to her body. He also discovers later that a girl he met at the demo just happens to be a nurse called Lara (Chulpan Khamatova) with whom he eventually falls in love. <
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>Events move fast, and the Wall comes down the month after Alex's mother had slipped into her coma. Change is so rapid that Alex, whose love for his mother is as unswerving as hers is for the socialist homeland, fears that she may even die from the shock of realizing that her beloved socialist homeland has been replaced by a capitalist one. With the need for East Germans and West Germans to co-operate, Alex joins a satellite TV company from the western side and becomes part of an East-West team with Denis (Florian Lukas). It turns out that Denis is a wizard at making movies, so he hits upon the idea of fooling his mother with fake TV programmes (connected to hidden video recorders) that convey the idea that his mother's beloved socialist homeland was still very much alive. <
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>They make arrangements to ensure that everything is as normal as possible, including redecorating an entire room to look exactly like her mother's old bedroom and finding old bottles, glass jars and tins with familiar food labels on it - pickles from Holland won't do, so Alex must look in the most unlikely places for them! As she comes "home" after eight months in a coma, everything really does seem to be as normal - so long as she never leaves the bedroom. Aspects of "old" GDR life are seen as Alex persuades young and old, including disillusioned old Party activist Herr Ganske (Jürgen Holtz), to celebrate his mother's birthday by singing patriotic socialist songs about the homeland, though the game is almost given away by the untimely unfurling over a tall neighbouring apartment block wall ... of a Coca-Cola ad! Alex and Denis quickly dream up a way to provide a plausible explanation for the presence of this capitalist drink - a faked documentary that convinces Christiane that Coca-Cola actually came from the East! <
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>Later on, while Alex sleeps in the apartment, Christiane slips out of bed and into a world which has, indeed, changed, and she stares incredulously at the sight of West German Mercedes and Audi cars parked in the street, a billboard advertising IKEA furniture and at a statue (without legs) of Lenin, right arm outstretched, being carried under a helicopter, presumably to be scrapped, figuratively symbolizing the impending death of Communist rule in the GDR. The statue, in a somewhat bizarre way, appears to beckon to this disbelieving socialist stalwart as the helicopter flies past her. A shocked Alex and his sister Ariane (Maria Simon) manage to hustle their wayward mother back to bed, but it is clear that the game has to end at some point. <
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>Just as Alex is about to reveal the deliberate deception during a family outing to the countryside, however, Christiane, in turn, makes a startling confession as to what really happened to her husband Robert (Burghart Klaussner) - and the alternative choice that she could have made for herself and her family, only for her to get cold feet and turn it down. So, now the shoe was proverbially on the other foot, as she begged forgiveness from her family from having lied to them all this time, unaware of the lies that Alex and company had been telling her. <
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>Having suffered yet another timely heart attack, she is taken to hospital again where, thanks to Denis, the deception ends with one last fake TV programme, which, given it does include genuine news archive footage of the momentous events surrounding the fall of the Wall, apparently convinces Christiane that many West Germans had found life on the western side too materialistic and shallow for their liking and seemed ready to embrace the socialist ideal, conveying the idea that there was more to life than just buying things. Christiane seems to be so happy, and she eventually dies just three days after the reunification of West and East Germany. Alex is both sad at his mother's death, but happy that she died happy, still apparently convinced that the socialist dream was intact even now. However, what Alex does not know was that she had, in fact, found out about the deception - through Lara, of all people. In a complete reversal of roles, she, in effect, becomes the deceiver rather than the deceived by deceiving her son into thinking that she had not known anything, yet she realises that he had done what he did to protect her, so she does this to "protect" him from his own "reality". <
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>Along with Bernd Lichtenberg, who wrote the screenplay, Wolfgang Becker co-wrote and directed this German movie, made by X Filme Creative Pool, the same company that made "Run Lola Run" (see my review), but distributed by Warner Bros for a worldwide audience. In total contrast to Winfried Bonengel's "Führer Ex" (see my review), this movie almost romanticizes what life was like in the socialist GDR, thus perhaps adding to the idea that socialism, for people like Christiane, really was a perfect dream for ordinary people - and, indeed, Alex helped to perpetuate that dream, even if the brutal realities of Communist life in the GDR go no further in this movie than the brief scene of rows of detainees with hands behind their heads in the prison itself before he is released. <
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>A parallel could be drawn between this movie and "Führer Ex": Tommy and Heiko from "Führer Ex" embrace neo-Nazism after their brutal treatment in jail whereas, before, they had never harboured such political ideology. Christiane, in this movie, had never embraced the socialist ideal before the Stasi (the GDR secret police) came looking for her absent husband. It seems that she had adopted this ideological stance as a kind of "mask", as if trying to hoodwink people (and, ultimately, herself) into thinking that she had fully embraced socialism and that her husband had fled because he had the "wrong" attitude. However, it seemed that it had gone so far over a period of over a decade that she really did believe in the ideal, thus indicating that one might eventually believe an ideal if it suits their situation where circumstances warrant. <
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"Tear down this wall."
Who would have thought that not long after Ronald Reagan uttered those confrontational words, that the Berlin Wall would be breeched. Many thought Mr. Reagan hopelessly naive for even questioning the status quo with regard to Berlin, but down it came, showing us once again how history sometimes is less evolutionary than subject to punctuated equilibrium. Think of geological plate tectonics---ie., earthquakes & volcanoes. The Berlin Wall was an anachronism (likewise the division of Germany). We---in the West, at least---knew it had to eventually come down, but never expected it to do so until it did. "Goodbye, Lenin" doesn't address whether east Germans believed similarly or not, but it is grounded in the abruptness with which the Berlin Wall did fall. And it captures the essence of such most effectively, and does so in such a unique manner. Most of the film takes place AFTER the Berlin Wall has been breeched, but---at one and the same time---the story ingeniously provides us, ie., the viewers, a window into the east BEFORE this dramatic development. Mind you, save for one exception, it doesn't concern itself with the dark side of the German "Democratic" Republic, ie., secret police activities, informers within society, and the like. (If you are interested in such, have a look at Timothy Garton Ash's book, "The File." It's about how the Stasi security services kept tabs on this British journalist, as well as on millions of its own citizens.) "Goodbye Lenin," nonetheless, does give one a taste of East Berlin and that it does so in such a whimsical way makes for an entertaining film (the details of which I assume you have already familiarized yourself with above.) In addition, the acting herein is more than above average, and the direction is most able--in particular, a scene of a moving Lenin statue is accomplished with great effect; and is, to boot, hilarious. (If you think Reagan was the incarnation of the devil & simply wish to register that view---although it has nothing to do with this film---then go ahead and ignore this well made film; otherwise do have a look at this film & do listen to the director's commentary on this DVD as well. It will clue you in to a lot---after watching this film---that you didn't even know you missed, but did!) This is a 3 1/2 star film, but because of its historical interest, I'm rounding it up to 4 Stars. (04oct) Cheers!

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"Mother slept through the relentless triumph of capitalism"
Viewers who buy the initial premise of Wolfgang Becker's Good Bye, Lenin! - a tale of a wall-sundered East Berlin family - will probably find lots to like about this movie. But fifteen minutes into it I started to wonder why devoted son Alex (Daniel Brühl) doesn't just tell his mother (Katrin Sass) that the old German Democratic Republic doesn't exist. Surely she will be able to handle it and it certainly would have solved a lot of problems. <
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>After father defects West, mother goes mentally East as a Young Pioneer leader, a Party activist, and an advocate for better women's underwear. On her way to a political function, she sees Alex at a demonstration and collapses of a heart attack on the eve of the dissolution of the socialist republic. Her coma lasts eight months. Finally, she awakens in the summer of 1990, when capitalism has triumphed and Germany is reunified. Now Alex is selling satellite dishes, and his sister Ariane (Maria Simon) is a Burger King worker. <
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>Her doctor insists that the slightest shock will kill her. So the frantic Alex transforms the apartment his mom shares with him, his sister and her new husband into a relic of the socialist past. He reconstructs everything from brands of canned foods to, as his sister says, "the cr*p we used to wear," scouring flea markets for appropriate props, and decanting new imported food products in the old familiar cans retrieved from the garbage. <
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>An enthusiastic video filmmaker even creates television news programs that present an alternative history of the recent German past. By installing a hidden VCR, Alex broadcasts old news or faked official explanations for the Coca-Cola logo mom spots from her bedroom window. "Mother slept through the relentless triumph of capitalism," Alex recalls. But he seems so reluctant to tell her the truth - partly because he loves her so dearly, but also because he's possibly reluctant to let the old socialist ways go. <
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>Then one day, the duped mother escapes the flat and steps into a world of Coca-Cola, Burger King, and used car dealerships. A few moments later, she encounters a giant Lenin statue trailing from a helicopter en route to history's graveyard. In the movie's most poetic touch, the Communist prophet symbolically gestures, just to her. Soon after, she faints and her illness steadily worsens, but her faith in, and devotion to the socialist system never waivers. <
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>Goodbye Lenin will richly award locals with sly in-jokes and a wonderfully comical and multi-dimensional performance by Brühl. Non-Germans will certainly get the essence of the humor but may find the movie rather repetitive, tedious, and also somewhat unrealistic. Its structure also works against its dramatic values as the middle section gets stretched almost beyond endurance, while the third act's portrayal of a family's attempts to come to terms with life in the West and their own reunification - the story's emotional core - feels a bit rushed. <
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>But the movie does work well as a kind of wistful nostalgia piece. Cleverly inserting documentary footage of the collapsed wall and the vast social revolution that took place, the movie shows that Communism itself was a fake façade, which makes Alex's imaginary motherland all the more a simulation of a simulation. There's an overwhelming haunting quality to his bittersweet and whimsical realization that "the DDR I created for her became the one I would have wished for." Mike Leonard may 05 <
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