There are comedies which are touching. There are comedies which are thought-provoking. But there are few that manage to achieve both. "Good bye, Lenin!" is in this ultra-rare class--a comedy which can only be called profound.
The only film I can imagine to compare this to is another European tale of well-intentioned deception: "Life is Beautiful." Though neither as funny nor as wrenching as Roberto Benini's Holocaust fairy-tale, "Good bye, Lenin!" is perhaps more thoughtful and mature.
This film is a story of upheaval, about a people surprised and intimidated by the force and gaudiness of their new freedom. For the first time in any film I have seen, I have been able to witness the onslaught of a new way of life through the eyes of those on the other side of the Wall. Crimson Coca-Cola banners unfurl on East German buildings like the flag of a conqueror--their presence seems unsettling and profane. A heroic cosmonaut is reduced to driving a taxi. The comfortable socialist products that once lined the shelves of the shabby local store are replaced by a garishly colored sea of choices that bewilder the customers searching for their familiar state-produced pickles. All around them, the vivid goals of profit and acquisition replace their failed goals of egalitarianism and brotherhood.
Amidst all this, protagonist Alex makes a choice for his proudly socialist mother as she awakens from an eight-month coma--he will shield her from this new way of life through an elaborate series of white lies and fabrication. In doing so, in his own words, he creates for her the East Germany that he had always wished for--a triumph rather than a failure. Ultimately, what Alex is truly protecting is a part of himself--the child who sang East German anthems and looked skyward with dreams of representing his tiny but proud country in the cosmos. Even as he successfully sells satellite TV to his countrymen, Alex is able to keep the ideals of socialism alive within him.
"Good bye, Lenin!" is a fitting and unapologetic eulogy to an impossible human dream of equality, unity and dignity--a dream which through the eyes of Alex and his mother is no less beautiful for all its horrific flaws, or its spectacular failure.
The only film I can imagine to compare this to is another European tale of well-intentioned deception: "Life is Beautiful." Though neither as funny nor as wrenching as Roberto Benini's Holocaust fairy-tale, "Good bye, Lenin!" is perhaps more thoughtful and mature.
This film is a story of upheaval, about a people surprised and intimidated by the force and gaudiness of their new freedom. For the first time in any film I have seen, I have been able to witness the onslaught of a new way of life through the eyes of those on the other side of the Wall. Crimson Coca-Cola banners unfurl on East German buildings like the flag of a conqueror--their presence seems unsettling and profane. A heroic cosmonaut is reduced to driving a taxi. The comfortable socialist products that once lined the shelves of the shabby local store are replaced by a garishly colored sea of choices that bewilder the customers searching for their familiar state-produced pickles. All around them, the vivid goals of profit and acquisition replace their failed goals of egalitarianism and brotherhood.
Amidst all this, protagonist Alex makes a choice for his proudly socialist mother as she awakens from an eight-month coma--he will shield her from this new way of life through an elaborate series of white lies and fabrication. In doing so, in his own words, he creates for her the East Germany that he had always wished for--a triumph rather than a failure. Ultimately, what Alex is truly protecting is a part of himself--the child who sang East German anthems and looked skyward with dreams of representing his tiny but proud country in the cosmos. Even as he successfully sells satellite TV to his countrymen, Alex is able to keep the ideals of socialism alive within him.
"Good bye, Lenin!" is a fitting and unapologetic eulogy to an impossible human dream of equality, unity and dignity--a dream which through the eyes of Alex and his mother is no less beautiful for all its horrific flaws, or its spectacular failure.