Good Bye Lenin! (2003)

                          GOOD BYE, LENIN!

                (a film review by Mark R. Leeper)

     CAPSULE: Contrary to the title, this film is about

     one small room in East Germany that has returned

     to the culture of Communist rule.  It is one man's

     attempt to protect his mother from the shock of

     finding out that communism fell in the eight

     months that she was comatose.  While the film has

     many serious moments the plot itself is more

     appropriate to a farce than to a semi-serious

     comedy-drama.  Rating: +1 (-4 to +4) or 6/10

Years ago when her husband defected to the West--and presumably

into the arms of another woman--Christiane (played by Katrin Sass)

threw herself whole-heartedly into patriotism for her country, the

German Democratic Republic. All her sexual energy was diverted

into public spirit. As a teacher she taught the virtues of

Communism to her young students. In 1989 when she saw her son

Alex (Daniel Bruhl) demonstrating against communism in a

demonstration that may be violently suppressed she has a heart

attack. She falls into a coma for eight months and is unconscious

while the old government dies, the Berlin Wall is toppled, and the

two Germanys are re-united. Also her daughter and later her son

fall in love. Then Christiane regains consciousness. It may be

too much of a shock to her to realize her beloved German

Democratic Republic is no more. She will be confined to her bed.

Alex decides to pull an elaborate ruse to make his mother believe

that the East of Germany is still under the control of Communism.

The task turns out to be more complex than Alex expected. He has

to recruit a friend and to film news stories for his mother's TV.

For East German brands that his mother liked, but that went away

with Communism, he must find old jars and refill them. The

script's biggest problem is in the complexity of the ruse. In a

farce the viewer is willing to suspend a great deal of disbelief

and ignore large logic holes. However GOOD BYE, LENIN! is not a

farce and has some serious drama. Much of the story is about

Alex's relationship with the father who defected leaving his

family behind. GOOD BYE, LENIN! might better be described as a

comedy-drama with some serious emotional interplay. Somehow that

seems to require a more logical world and the viewer needs to

believe the premise of the story. Much of the ruse is possible

only because of the contrivance that Alex's job selling satellite

television allows him to play his fictional news programs for his

mother. And he has the talent to write and photograph these

programs. (That is not as easy as it sounds. If you doubt me,

try writing a news story that could pass for an authentic piece of

network news.) He also is able to quickly improvise explanations

when his mother notices inconsistencies in this fantasy world he

has created.

The film never completely explains Christiane's apparent passion

for the German Democratic Republic. The story works only if we

believe the shock of the political change is sufficient to kill

Christiane. Certainly her children have long since eagerly

grasped the changes and newfound freedoms of the succeeding order.

Her son sells satellite TV and her daughter works at a Burger King

and has brought home a West German boyfriend. Of course there

must have been some patriots in East Germany, but it seems the

majority did not believe very strongly in the socialist political

system. Alex himself was inspired to believe in his country years

before when an East German became a cosmonaut, but he does not

have much disappointment in the political change. Among other

things, this film seems to be a paean to capitalism and the

changes it brought. So many of the Germans seem to have embraced

the new system and East Germany filled with the vibrant colors of

capitalism, even if they are the colors of advertisements.

The plot of GOOD BYE, LENIN! has holes, but the film itself is by

turns light and amusing and then dramatic and even affecting. But

somehow it just is not greatly believable. I rate it +1 on the -4

to +4 scale or 6/10.  [-mrl]

                                        Mark R. Leeper

                                        mleeper@optonline.net

                                        Copyright 2004 Mark R. Leeper

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X-RAMR-ID: 37528
X-Language: en
X-RT-ReviewID: 1269840
X-RT-TitleID: 1129584
X-RT-AuthorID: 1309
X-RT-RatingText: 6/10