Good Bye, Lenin!
(Columbia/Tristar Region 1 DVD)
(2003)
review by Head Cheeze

As our regular readers should have noticed by now, we here at Horrorview doesn't adhere to the "all-horror-all-the-time" creed of our fellow genre sites. Oftentimes, our readers will see reviews for films that may have them scratching their heads, but we do it for you, dear reader. After all, man cannot live on severed heads alone.

So, with that, I give you Good Bye, Lenin!, one of the most endearing, enchanting, and fascinating films I've come across in ages.

The film focuses on a family in East Germany, literally months before the re-unification of the country and the fall of the Berlin wall. The family's strong willed communist matriarch (Sass) is felled by a heart attack, and falls into a coma. While she sleeps, the East Germany she loved becomes a country besieged by capitolism, free elections, and Burger Kings. When the mother comes out of her coma, her family is warned that the slightest shock could give her a second heart attack, so her son Alex (Bruhl) concocts a scheme to keep his mother blissfully unaware of the changes that have occured in her absence. With the help of his sister (Simon), his aspiring filmmaker friend Denis (Florian Lukas), and his confused neighbours, Alex recreates the East Germany his mother left behind months before, providing his bedridden mother with bogus newscasts, recycled packaging of communist food-stuffs, and visits from the "outside world", telling her of the great strides her government has made. Alex seems to have everything under control, until his mother starts to feel better, and wants to see the great changes Alex and Denis have created for herself.

Good Bye, Lenin! is at once a witty comedy, a touching drama, and a fascinating piece of social cinema. I was especially impressed by the way it showed the effects of Glasnost on the youth of East Germany, and how, even as they embraced the changes, they did so with a certain amount of trepidation. Wolfgang Becker shows us this by presenting East Germany as a sort of cocoon of social stability, even if that stability is at the expense of certain freedoms. When the wall falls, we see the effects, both good and bad, on the country's populace, and it's all quite jarring. Suddenly, jobs are scarce, money is tight, and the choices are overwhelming. Almost as soon as the wall falls, doctors, lawyers, and other professional types head to greener pastures in the West, leaving behind empty buildings, furnished apartments, and understaffed hospitals. It's not to suggest that the change was a bad thing; just that it was a culture shock that is still felt by some to this day.

The film features great performances by Bruhl and Sass, and their relationship is so deeply explored that it transcends cinema. It's one of the most effective portrayals of a mother-son relationship I've seen, and makes Alex's selfless attempts to shield his mother from the outside world all the more believable. My only complaint is that the film's third act seems to drag just a bit, and that the inclusion of the family's estranged father seems forced and out of place.

The DVD from Columbia/Tristar features a pair of commentary tracks, behind-the-scenes footage, and more. Like the film, the supplementals are in German, but feature English subtitles.

Good Bye, Lenin! is a really neat flick that I strongly suggest checking out. It's funny, smart, and engaging, and one of the best films I've seen this year.