Wolfgang Becker's 2003 gem of a German tragicomedy Good Bye, Lenin! is undoubtedly one of the finest foreign-language films I've ever seen. I've chosen to review it this week because today is the anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall but trust me, it is magical all year 'round.
After a prologue set in 1976, it follows Alexander Kerner (Daniel Bruhl in his breakthrough performance), an amiable young East German who lives with his sister Ariane (Maria Simon) and their mother Christiane (Katrin Sass), a staunch socialist. Upon seeing Alexander participating in a protest march, Christiane suffers a heart attack which puts her in a coma for three months, during which time the Wall falls. After she miraculously wakes, her doctor tells Alexander and Ariane that any surprising news could give her another attack. So, after persuading him (with much trouble) to let her return home, Alexander hatches a plan: to recreate the former East Germany in their small flat and convince her that her beloved communism is actually triumphing over capitalism. But naturally this proves much more complicated and ambitious than he thinks, especially once Christiane longs to go back outside.
Good Bye, Lenin! came out of the "Ostalgie" movement in Germany: nostalgia for the former East Germany. You can tell Becker's sympathy for this movement also, but he and co-writer Bernd Lichtenberg still aren't exactly propagandists, either. Their brilliantly layered screenplay also offers a direct condemnation of some East German policies, mostly through a subplot involving Alex's long-last father (Burkhart Klassner) and another with his Russian girlfriend, Christiane's nurse Lara (Chulpan Khamatova), and he is ultimately shielded from truths he himself would find unbearable.
Good Bye, Lenin! came out of the "Ostalgie" movement in Germany: nostalgia for the former East Germany. You can tell Becker's sympathy for this movement also, but he and co-writer Bernd Lichtenberg still aren't exactly propagandists, either. Their brilliantly layered screenplay also offers a direct condemnation of some East German policies, mostly through a subplot involving Alex's long-last father (Burkhart Klassner) and another with his Russian girlfriend, Christiane's nurse Lara (Chulpan Khamatova), and he is ultimately shielded from truths he himself would find unbearable.
This is just such a thoroughly charming, resonant and cleverly plotted film. Becker's pacing and narrative cues are all so fitting, and not to mention numerous political and intertextual references: a statue of Lenin flying around Berlin, a computer screen showing green digital rain a la The Matrix (that one deliberately metafictional and retrospective), two nods to Stanley Kubrick (2001: A Space Odyssey and A Clockwork Orange, specifically) and a huge Coca-Cola sign outside the Kerners' window.
Daniel Bruhl is deservedly a Hollywood name now and he always seems to get these very straitlaced, humourless types but he's just so damn good at them and he consistently makes them charismatic, as he does with Alex. I really do love Inglourious Basterds, but this remains his best work for me. Not to be outdone, Katrin Sass nails Christiane's sincerity as a gung-ho socialist and her eventually-revealed regrets as a mother and wife, and Maria Simon is hilarious as the even-more disagreeable Ariane.
Overall, Good Bye, Lenin! has an air of Life Is Beautiful and The Truman Show to it, but it still maintains a totally unique voice and flavour. And it remains just as relevant to our world now, but will still leave you feeling very joyful. Its title may start with "Good Bye," but by the end you won't want to say that. I never do, anyway.
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