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Reviews

GOOD BYE LENIN (2003): THE VISION OF ECONOMIC CHANGE

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Goodbye Lenin is a satire film played during the German reunification. It quickly became a big success in German cinema and attracted worldwide recognition. The set brought the viewer back into the days of the German Democratic Republic, 13 years after the collapse of socialism and the fall of the wall. While it doesn’t glorify the past, the film is an excellent account of the country’s rich history. 

 

The Economic Aspect

The success of “Goodbye Lenin” brings attention to the uproar of Germans who feel the need to rediscover their socialist history and relieve the changes. Many people wonder why Germans want to restore a system they already lost, but it’s a part of their collective identity. 

The new marketing structure has seen a spike in the economy of East Germany. Easterners felt like their world changed at an extremely high speed that other ex-socialist societies didn’t undergo. They were overwhelmed by the intensity of western laws, consumer products, popular culture icons, and institutions. Their identity was torn between The socialist East and the capitalist West. 

The film portrays the east’s assimilation into the western culture, resulting in the dissolved identity of the East Germans. The ultimate question is, “Should the major social changes and the “peaceful revolutions xxx” that followed be re-evaluated?” They may have been traumatizing events that were not treated with the utmost care they deserved. 

 

The Rundown of Goodbye, Lenin

Wolfgang Becker directs the movie. He narrates the events in 1989 that all Germans can relate to. The story is based on Christiane Kerner, who devotes her life to teaching in the socialist state after losing her husband. She would later witness her son participating in a violent protest against the socialist state and suffer a heart attack due to the shock and pain. 

Christiane wakes up eight months later, having missed a large chunk of the fundamental changes that occurred in Eastern Berlin. When her son, Alexander, realizes the changes could have on the mother, he recreates the past and makes her believe that the former communist world still exists. As the show progresses, his efforts to keep up with the reconstructed reality become more complicated. From convincing family members to keep up with the lie to re-labeling groceries and remodeling their apartments, the lies slowly catch up with Alexander.

During the final cast show, it becomes evident that Christiane understands what the son has been doing. Although the mother passes on, the ending is on a positive note. Christiane dies gracefully and happy, knowing that the son would go to whatever lengths to protect her. 

 

Communism has been made to look like an ideal situation that cannot survive the current economy. Sometimes it is used to describe Eastern Germany or the Soviet Union. Considering that the typical definition of communism is unattainable, it is incorrect to use it as an interchangeable word for socialism. Goodbye, Lenin shows the other side of the story that is often assumed. Not everyone was pleased with the economic changes in Germany, and their voices shouldn’t be silenced.

Historical context, Plot, Reviews

The History of Berlin: The End of the Old and the Beginning of the New

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“Bye-bye communism” should have been the name of the movie. The hilarious film shows the beginning of the end communism in Europe and the world. Its almost easy to forget how divided Berlin was before the fall of the wall or for that matter the globe. Its explains the real historic event in a humorous way but without compromising the integrity that democracy represented for many in those times. In less than 30yrs. Germany has shaken its communist past. In that span of time people of younger generations probably never new that Germany was divided. This is a testament to the resilience admiration to freedom the German people display.

The film centers around Alex who in the beginning of the film is like every other young person in the east, protesting for change. Ironically Alex meets Lara who save him from choking during the protest. Lara eventually becomes Alex girlfriend in the film. He just wants to live in a society where he can choose what to do. Alex does become more sympathetic to socialism when he deceives his sick mother. Granted the first thing he does when the wall comes down is go see porn in the west, but that’s his choice. Just one of the many side humor notes in the movies in reference to freedom.
It’s interesting to see how far the German people have come since the fall of socialism. Youth like Alex, who was 22yrs. at the time according to the movie. This is the same generation who would pushed German forward. This is the same generation that battled to reunify German and shake the ghosts of its communist past. In the day of GDR half of Berlin was in shambles due to communism, but today Berlin is once again being known as an international city. In the film this is represented by actual footage of western and eastern Germans tearing down the wall making the city whole once more.
In the movie we see Alex trying to hide the present but in continuously encroaches on the lie that he’s created. I great point made there, no matter how hard he tried nobody can hold back progress. Once Berlin came together Ariane quits school and starts working at Burger King, super hilarious. This moment in the movie also has great importance because in the east everybody had to have a degree, but in the west this wasn’t the case not all people desire to be in highly educated job or life. To me that’s perfectly fine and now thanks to democracy its ok in Germany as well.
This film is truly impressive the way it displays all walks of life. While maintaining its integrity in unbiased approach. Surely their people who were not happy about the east, but it’s the past now. Nobody can argue that Germany is a better nation for what happen in history. This film is more then just another funny movie. All though I agree the best way to portray such a sensitive subject is through humor. It’s great to note the Germans themselves received the movie with open arms. Another mark showing that a people and a nation are looking forward.
This movie is an example to the whole world what life was like not too long ago. Just think of this way, if you were in east Germany you think this film would be allowed. Nobody wants to be in a society where xvideos is censored. The movie lets everybody know that change can be shocking and scary, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s a bad thing.

Historical context, Reviews, Wolfgang Becker

A Journey from Two to One Germany through the Eyes of Alex

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Good bye Lenin! Rewarded as the Best European Film at the 2003 Berlin Film Festival is the most commercially successful German movie in history. The film provides the glimpse of one of the major European historical event and revolves around during the collapse of Berlin wall .The movie depicts the effect of German reunification on the people and highlights many social and political issues. The Film is based on the story of a young boy named Alex and his fragile mother and his struggle to keep his avid communist mother alive and explores the reunification of East and West Germany through his life.
Alex’s mother, Christiane Kerner, is an avid follower of the Socialist party and a strong political activist, when she sees her son Alex being arrested in an anti-government protest, suffers a heart attack and falls into a coma shortly before the fall of the Berlin’s Wall. During her unconscious stage Germany faces many changes from the fall of Berlin wall to German reunification. But for Christiane, this news might turn to a shock and a relapse. Alex being aware of the fact that even slightest shock could become threat to his mother’s life, Alex hides the fall of the GDR from his mother and maintains the delusion that things are pretty normal in the German democratic republic. He tries to create the GDR again for her in their apartment by decorating the flat in its previous decor, replacing old clothes, and feeding his mother in old labeled jars as earlier. But like all deception, gradually it becomes complicated and even more difficult to maintain.
Despite everything, Christiane seldom witnesses strange incidences, such as a huge Coca-Cola ad banner spreading out on a building outside the flat on which Alex portrays his own story regarding the claim of patent dispute of Coca Cola’s invention to GDR from West. Even Alex and his buddy creates their own fake special reports by editing old tapes of news broadcasts, pretending to his mother to be a live broadcast. Thus Becker enfolds the Alex’s heart touching attempts to save his mother in every possible way and its is more of coming of age with sub-plots including the development of Alex’s relationship with Nurse Lara and Ariane’s job at Burger king after she quits her university study.
But one day Christiane ventures out from that tiny fictional world, sees a changed world herself. She learns that the streets are flooded with Westerners and is perplexed by all the ads for Coke. Alex and Denis again construct a fictional story to her that Westerners are fleeing to the East and produce fake newscasts reporting that the West is facing collapse and the Coke’s right has reverted to the communist nation.
Good bye Lenin is an idiosyncratic comedy, because it never utterly says the self deception which leads Christiane to support the Communist Party. In the end of the movie it is surprisingly suggested that she may have replaced her spouse with that of communist party as an act of compensation to her emotional trauma as in the earlier part of the movie it is learnt that his father abandoning his family behind flee over the Berlin wall to the west.
The film has many ups and downs and is a nostalgic as it is reflects and represents how the societies’ significant changes can adamantly affect people. The movie is marvelously entertaining, witty and occasionally poignant, tragic-comedy dealing with issues related with relationships, bonds to those of political, social and cultural. It gives a great insight of how the whole transition of communist to western world democracy influenced people.

Historical context, Plot, Reviews

Receptive depiction of Berlin’s Fall Leading to Political and Social Turmoil

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GOOD BYE LENIN! is a tragic-comedy of a bittersweet type. It has revealed the intricacy of life in the midst the buoyancy of freedom, temptation of westernization, and the saddle of hasty change. Set against the historic collapse of the Berlin Wall, the movie combines the comedy of situation, irony of destiny, and the clashing alliance between reality and the fiction, hence depicting a underlying tale of being.

The most important theme in the movie is the constant concurrence between the old German Democratic republic (GDR) and the fall of the Berlin Wall. The Central Character Alex represents the westernized values as are the protestors who want to smooth the path for western influence and seek the fall of Socialism.

It is a blaze on a dictatorial rule which started spitting the mentalities within the nation. The outcome of which is a generation commended to westernization. This movie gives an inspired summary of Socialist principles in wider contexts, such as the military and function of the nation as well as it’s filtration into the minds of the individuals.

In Goodbye Lenin, the revolt by the people is shown in the start, everything else flowed from that, changing the lives of people, and ending the word “Communism”. Goodbye Lenin is rich in visual representation, wit and humor and gives an accurate historical impression of how these changes affected the lives of East German people and their responses in return.

The fall of Berlin Wall is an important historical event not only for German but for entire World. The Movie Good bye Lenin! Is mainly a political satire on the absurd political system. The historical context in the movie is the leading part in the plot and gives very small overview of the political system of that time. Movie is more focused on the lives of East German people rather than depicting any political history involved. The movie mainly stress on struggles of people living in the east German before and after the fall of Berlin wall and reunification of East and West Germany into one drastically affected the lives of the people in that nation such as changes in to lifestyles, changes in currency, disregard of the east.

History of Berlin: Few nations in the world have borne the turbulent history as similar to Berlin. Before the Second World War, the amalgamated countries signed a Potsdam Treaty which defined the Berlin’s borders. Hence Berlin was divided into 2 parts with Soviet influence in the East and US, French and British influence in the west an later the two cities split into two through the creation of a wall called Berlin Wall. The wall separated the German Democratic Republic (GDR) in the East from the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG) in the west.

In the East German Democratic Republic asserted the rigorous and powerful control on the city and on citizen though communism. People were forced to live in a harsh and restricted manner and were forced to break the ties from the loved once living in the West with no contacts for several years.

The movie does not talk negative about the GDR, neither supports the GDR. It does not provide any insight into the dark side of the East Germen Government but more focuses on the struggle of a family affected by those changes occurred post Reunification.

Overall I think Good Bye Lenin! is a remarkably enjoyable movie with a great idea but it falls short in strengthening characters and bi-plots. The movie constantly entertains in humorous and mentally provoking way while shows societies’ significant transformation and how that can critically influence someone’s life.

Plot, Reviews, Techniques, The style

Genre and Style: The Use of Farce in Representing Political Change

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The film Goodbye Lenin focuses on many serious issues vanished inside of a comical illusion. By combining elements of satire with the central Love Story between Alex and his mother the director creates a striking contrast between the emotional turmoil of one family’s response to a life-threatening condition and the serious political backdrop to the story. This film, because of this, is best described as a tragicomedy where in the comedy deals with a tragically sad situation in a way that is quite humorous. We laugh as the audience as Alex desperately tried to protect his mother from the “Real World” but at the same time the audience is still moved by her death or strongly affected by how strong the love is between the mother and the son. Of course certain references are only understood by the German audience what other references can make audiences from all over the world laugh out loud.

Alex’s actions become increasingly bizarre. His improbable situation is made particularly entertaining by the Hues of running jokes. And the plot speeds up until it is resolved with the final confession and last stroke of the mother. Throughout this film the audience Smiles at otherwise sad situations. Without realizing it, Alex becomes controlling of his friends and his family in order to protect his mother which relies upon Him using methods of the old communist state. This irony of course indicates that the mother’s original stroke was brought about by seeing her son protesting against the old communist state.

Throughout this film, there are several interesting motifs. Repeatedly we see flashes of space and space travel particularly when we learn about Alex’s childhood and how obsessed he was with space travel early in the film. When his mother first ventured into the outside world after she had her stroke, she sees Lennon in the sky drifting into the sunset. As his statue passes in front of her we see his hand located at the front of the frame as though he is beckoning to her and yet she does not follow him. For the mother coming out into physical reality meant letting go of the imaginary world in which she spent years and have a thing. It is also a chance for her to truly face the reality of her situation and own up to the fact that she abandoned her husband and that the ideals she used to justify the lies she told you her children were no longer valid. But her character is not alone in this. Alex had to face up to the fact that the world he built for his mother was built out of line and would collapse sooner or later.

See director interview archive footage from actual events during this time into this narrative which is a very important technique. The technique encourages the audience to remember that in spite of the community events taking place these events were real. This truly helps the audience to play into the concept of truth and lies. By taking real footage the director is able to demonstrate how easily footage of real events can be manipulated in order to create the response desired. That fake Berlin created by Alex in order to protect his mother embodied the ideal that some parts of Germany truly dreams of achieving. And letting go of this dream amounted to having to let go of many former heroes. For Alex this of course meant letting go of Sigmund Jahn and for his mother it meant letting go of Lenin. Jahn drives away in a taxi and the Lenin is transported into the air. This film truly explores these issues while at the same time telling and emotionally involved and funny story.