It would be hard not to argue that the fall of the Berlin Wall was one of the most iconic moments of the last thirty years. Dividing families, separating a city, forming a chasm between the Western and Eastern world; the Berlin Wall was a symbol of the borders that we, as humans, put in our own way, blocking us from achieving unity and peace. The fall of the wall was an empowering and supremely positive event, and Wolfgang Becker’s 2003 film Good Bye Lenin! is a heartfelt motion picture that builds an intriguing family centred story around the iconic happening.
Narrated by Alex (Daniel Brühl), a twenty-something who lives in Berlin on the east side of the wall, he transports us through a tumultuous year in his family’s life. With a father that fled to the West without his wife and children, Alex has grown up with a mother, Christiane (Katrin Saß), who has become married to the Socialist Fatherland. An idealist and ardent patriot, she is enamoured with the system that she lives within. Alex’s older sister, the quirky Ariane (Maria Simon) also lives with them (she has an infant daughter).
Uninspired and disenchanted, Alex joins an anti-government march, and by unlucky happenstance, his mother spots him as he is being arrested – the shock causes her to have a major heart attack. Slumping in the centre of the escalating clashes that are occurring between the protesters and the police, it takes a long time for her to receive the proper medical attention.
By the time she is helped, her heart is in a severely weakened state and she has fallen into a coma. As she lays unconscious, the world around her changes. The wall falls, democracy comes to the East, and everything that she knew and loved quickly goes by the wayside.
Ariane drops out of school and begins working at a Burger King, while Alex, who has lost his job as an electronics repairman, gets a contract working along with Denis (Florian Lukas) selling and installing western satellite packages. Denis, a film fanatic, is obsessed with 2001: A Space Odyssey and other such motion pictures.
After eight months, Christiane awakens from her coma to see her son making out with her nurse, and his girlfriend, Soviet born Lara (Chulpan Khamatova). Being warned by the doctor that she is still in danger (as her memory may be effected and her heart is still very weak), Alex learns that she must not suffer any shock.
Deciding to remove her from the hospital and pretend that none of the external changes have actually happened, Alex sets up her room as it originally was. Soon realizing the difficulty of the task, as everything that once was has disappeared, including all of the food manufacturers (that his mother loved) which have been replaced by foreign counterparts, the son struggles to keep normalcy in his mother’s life. Dumpster-diving to find jars that have the original labels, the loyal son goes all in to construct the ruse, similarly finding retro-style clothing and hiring the children that his mother formerly taught to help sell the story.
Soon, his mother is asking for a television. Finding tapes from the past to quell her thirst, things become complicated when the building across the way suddenly begins to fly a giant Coca-Cola banner (clearly highlighting that the West has arrived) while Alex is hosting a birthday party for his mother. The young man reaches out to Denis, hoping that they will be able to create phony broadcasts to cover up the ever-growing inconsistencies. Will Alex be able to continue the ruse, or will it come crumbling down much like the Berlin Wall?
Funny, heartfelt and melancholic, Good Bye Lenin! builds a family centric story that feels real. Demonstrating the secrets and lies that we keep in order to make those around us happy (or make ourselves feel better), this motion picture’s external player (the Berlin Wall) is a fitting allegory for the barriers that families and family members put up for a plethora of reasons. It will most likely make us question the characters that we watch onscreen – ‘Is Alex doing the right thing?’, ‘Are the secrets that they keep truly for the good of others?’, as well as so many other queries.
Like most quality dramas, it is the numerous ‘little’ moments that build up to create a beautifully rich pastiche: Ariane recognizing her father’s voice while working the drive thru at Burger King, a surprising secret that is divulged when the family heads out to their vacation cabin, or the moment when Alex builds up the courage to visit their long gone father, all feel poignant, building to a fitting crescendo. They capture the pain and hardship we can cause each other, but also the hope and reconciliation that can still come after many long years.
Featuring a number of references to Kubrick (2001: A Space Odyssey and A Clockwork Orange), you may also take note that the main character’s name is Alex (Malcolm McDowell’s character in A Clockwork Orange), while Christiane is the name of Kubrick’s wife. Coca-Cola is often referenced, recalling Billy Wilder’s 1961 classic One, Two, Three – the building utilized by Alex and Denis in their news broadcast (to explain the Coke banner) is the same used by Wilder in the film. There are also odes to La Dolce Vita, Dr. Zhivago, as well as several other films, for the movie buffs out there.
Painting an interesting picture of the time, Good Bye Lenin! provides us with an inside look at the changes that occurred within both a shifting nation and a family in flux. Like life, it has all of the laughs, love and loss that comes with it. The winner of countless awards, it features superb performances, spot on direction, a hearty story and a fitting message. As a final comment, it is interesting to note that the story is actually loosely based upon the last years of Vladimir Lenin’s life – he too was placed in a monitored room for health reasons, with Joseph Stalin censoring the newspapers, removing any mention of political dissidence. So, don’t put up a wall against watching foreign films, head west to track down Good Bye Lenin!.
German with English subtitles.