March 25, 2004
When the world changes: a review of "Goodbye, Lenin"
I just saw Goodbye, Lenin in the theater on Saturday, It's a recent German film, about the insanity of life when the Berlin Wall fell, and the many changes that happened when a stable system collapses in on itself. Despite that, it's a relaxed comedy (ranging toward farce, at times: I'd place it in about the same genre as The Dish , if a little more thoughtful.). A good film, a painstaking film, and one worth seeing. In German, with subtitles.
[Slight spoilers and discussion follow]
In the movie, we see life in East Germany before and after the wall falls. Under Communism, life is fairly predicable: students go to school, eat food, learn pioneer anthems, and try to sort out the propaganda from the news, often poorly. Then, in 1989, everything becomes different. The government collapses, the Berlin Wall falls, and East Germans wander west to discover the joys of a new world.
At the time, Aleks, the protagonist, is just starting his adult life. His mother has been a strong patriot ("married to the state") since his father fled the country at a conference into the arms of a comely West German, and has dedicated herself to teaching and raising a new generation of strident communists. She had a heart attack, though, and no one got to her in time--throwing her into a coma for eight months.
She misses the tremendous social changes entirely.
In those months, Aleks gets a job; his sister drops out of her college economics program (and who wouldn't, under the circumstances); and the old communist groceries are replaced with new supermarkets. Everyone redecorates with colors; they buy cars; they live a newer, freeer life.
Aleks' mother recovers. She must be shielded, however, from surprise: another heart attack might kill her. Presumably, the fall of her beloved government and the end of her government teaching job would kill her. So Aleks goes on a mission to simulate life from another world.
From eight months earlier.
The lengths he goes to--and the ways that the world's events keep grinding on--are what makes up the comedy of the film. The farce comes of the increasingly-desperate attempts to keep the seams from unravelling.
But I was fascinated by one thread that the filmmakers pursued skillfully. Not since Hedwig [1] have I seen so thorough a portrayal of the sacrafices that come of a system changing. In Hedwig's case, of course, the fall of the wall is ironic. In this case, it's a little bit melancholic: a world has ended, even if it wasn't a particularly good world. The people who had figured out a way to surive--party members, teachers--are stunned, confused, lost. The new world is filled with shining cars and Coca-Cola--but it's also got empty apartments and a newly-impoverished population.
It's not an indictment of communism (the movie is fairly neutral, I think), nor is it an indictment of capitalism. The movie isn't even against change: there's a lot of joy in the crowds when the walls fall, and we see various bits of video enough to know that the people truly are excited about the new opportunities, the new world.
But it's still hard when your job, when your life, has been to hold up a system that's now gone. For those people, Aleks provides an invaluable service: he lets them hold on, a little longer, and perhaps helps them ease the transition.
Both worlds--East Berlin, before and after--are beautifully fleshed out. The costuming and decorations are precise, painstaking. It really does look like 19892, and it really does look like a communist-era apartment. It's the transition between the two, at dizzying speed but with tremendous care, that gives this movie its strength.
1 "Six inches forward, five inches back..."
2 Except for that t-shirt. IMDB claims it's a joke, others claim it's an error. I was weirded out by seeing the "Matrix" on a 1989 t-shirt.
March 25, 2004 12:23 AM | TrackBack | in Movies