Good Bye Lenin (Sub Dol Slip)
by Wolfgang Becker (II)
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Product details
Actor: Chulpan Khamatova, Daniel Br?hl, Florian Lukas, Katrin Sa?, Maria SimonDirector: Wolfgang Becker (II)
Edition: VHS Tape
Audio: German (Original Language); English (Subtitled)
Format: Color, Dolby, NTSC, Subtitled
Running Time: 118 minutes
Release Date: 2004-08-10
Audience Rating: R (Restricted)
Publisher: Sony Pictures
Studio: Sony Pictures
VHS Movie Reviews of Good Bye Lenin (Sub Dol Slip)
Movie Review: An All Time Favorite
Summary: 5 Stars
This film has been reviewed many times here so I won't recap the story elements but simply say that this is a wonderful, warm and moving film that I will watch again many times!Movie Review: On "Socialist" Lies
Summary: 5 Stars
Some things are painful in life. As a life-long anti-Stalinist, pro-socialist militant the demise of the Democratic Republic of Germany and its theory of "socialism in half a country" and later, on its heels, the demise of the Soviet Union and its theory of "socialism in one country" were nevertheless social disasters of historic proportions for me. One result is that we live in the age of the one superpower world dominated by the United States and its genuine capacity for making trouble, militarily unchecked by any other power. Friends there is nothing good about that. Witness Iraq and many other hot spots in the world.
But enough of that because, despite my obvious different political take on what happened in East Germany in late 1989 and early 1990, this film Good Bye, Lenin is a very interesting view on what happened to one fictionalized family of mixed political and social sensibilities during that period. The film has been advertised as a comedy, and although there are some funny moments like the various attempts by some of the characters, including the main character son Alex, to create alternate social universes, there is more than a hint of satire (and sometimes localized `insider' satire) here. And satire is a very precious commodity in an age where everything is taken literally, whether it should be or not. Thus, a good prescription is -fight hard for your politics but take a minute to see humor in the sometimes absurd ways of this wicked old world.
The device used to create the central plot in this film has a long pedigree, although I believe that it might be the first time that it has been used in an attempt to preserve socialist reality. Quickly outlined, a son (the previously mentioned Alex) attempts, almost manically at times, to create "socialism in one bedroom" for his ailing mother who upon awaking in 1990 after eight months from a coma induced by a heart attack after witnessing him being beaten by the Statsi needs to, on doctor's advise, avoid any `excitement' on pains of relapse (and possible death). The dramatic tension revolves around an ever-widening and bizarre conspiracy (including drawing in his skeptical Russian girlfriend, his sister, her boyfriend, the neighbors, former colleagues, etc.) to keep mom in the dark about everything that has gone on during that time.
A subplot, however, reveals that Mom, in need of illusions as she might be, has secrets of her own in relationship to the whereabouts of her husband who left for West Germany in the past without his family, mainly because she balked at going for her own reasons. There are, additionally, many sight gags or things that pass for sight gags in a society that had a very limited exposure to the `virtues' of Western consumer society. But enough said, get this film if you want a very smart look at what happens when cultural changes come fast and furious. Not everyone can, or should, adjust accordingly. But also get it, if I may add, so that you can begin to understand why mother wanted to stick with the old socialist ways, as she understood that concept. And maybe fight for them, as well.
Movie Review: WOLFGANG BECKER, OPUS 4
Summary: 5 Stars
***** 2003. Co-written and directed by Wolfgang Becker. Six European Film awards. A few months before the fall of the Berlin wall, Alex's mother suffers from a heart attack and falls into coma. When she wakes up months later, her family fears that she won't be able to face the new political reality. Instructive, poignant and fascinating, GOOD BYE, LENIN! deserves all the international awards it earned 5 years ago. Masterpiece.Movie Review: An honest film about lying
Summary: 4 Stars
Although marketed as an all-out comedy, Goodbye, Lenin! is in many ways more of a feelgood tragicomedy about the nature of lies rather than a laugh-a-minute sidesplitter. Certainly the premise has all the makings of farce as East German Daniel Bruhle has to go to increasingly desperate lengths to keep the news that communism and the Berlin Wall have both fallen from his Party activist mother when she emerges from a coma for fear the shock will cause a fatal heart attack. Since the pace of change to Western values and fashions has been so rapid that means finding their apartment's long discarded drab furniture, seeking out now discontinued East German brands of pickles and coffee and even faking DDR news reports with his fellow satellite TV installer as he tries to recreate the old East Germany within the borders of his mother's bedroom (not so easy with Coca Cola setting up shop just across the road), in the process gradually creating the more reasonable DDR he wished had existed. The laughs are there but less frequent than you'd expect, and often underlined with the sadness of a country suddenly forced to confront years of deprivation and betrayal: his sister's revelation of the first words their long-absent father spoke to her is initially funny but genuinely tragic on reflection, and the film manages to pull off both reactions without over-milking them. Nor does it sugar-coat the ending, opting for something rather more affecting than a simple Happy Ever After. Chalk up another quiet winner for the 21st Century German film industry Renaissance.
Movie Review: German Gem
Summary: 5 Stars
"Goodbye Lenin" is an excellent film. Director Wolfgang Becher keeps the action fluid as one scene sparks the next. The French Academy of Cinema named it the Best Film from the European Union.
Daniel Bruhl is the star who plays the son Alex. He first came to my attention in Love in Thoughts and was in The Edukators. He has also played in "Ladies in Lavender" with Maggie Smith & Judy Dench and "The Borne Ultimatum." The European Film Academy named him Best Actor for "Goodbye Lenin". He does an excellent job as the young man shouldering responsibility long before he's ready.
Katrin Sass plays his mother Christiane. As an actress, she won the Silver Bear Best Actress award from the Berlin International Film Festival in 1982 for "Burgschaft ein Jahr" and won the James People's Choice Award as Best Actress for this film. Sass turns in an excellent performance in the greatly varied role from political activist to invalid.
The story of the film revolves around the family whose father has apparently left them. The mother raises her children in East Germany. She is quite attached to her country and suffers a heart attack as she watches her son at a protest rally. Falling into a coma, she awakes 8 months later to a reunified Germany where the wall has fallen. However, since her heart is very fragile, Alex concocts a huge fantasy to keep from his mother the fact that Germany has changed because he fears it would be too great a shock. This results in all sorts of hilarious antics such as searching for East German pickle jars and telling his mother that thousands of West Germans have been scaling the walls to get into East Germany and escape capitalism.
Chulpan Khametova plays his sister Lara who is busy having babies with her boyfriend Rainer played by Alexander Beyer. There is a hilarious scene where Beyer bears all as he tries to fix window blinds before bothering to dress. Meanwhile Alex falls for Ariane played by Maria Simon who appeared in the film Luther. Alex enlists his coworker Denis to help fake news broadcasts so they can play the tapes on his mother's TV. Florian Lukus as Denis is a stitch, wearing fake moustaches and pretending to be a TV news anchorman. Lukas won the Best Supporting Actor from the German Film Awards for his role. There is a reversal at the end of the film where we meet Alex & Lara's father Robert Kerner. Burghart Klaussner who was also in "The Edukators" plays Kerner. "Goodbye Lenin" is a German gem from 2003 that is a great film. Bravo!
Summary of Good Bye Lenin (Sub Dol Slip)
Contemporary comedies rarely stretch themselves beyond a bickering romantic couple or a bickering couple and a bucket of bodily fluids, which makes the ambition and intelligence of Good bye, Lenin! not simply entertaining but downright refreshing. The movie starts in East Germany before the fall of communism; our hero, Alex (Daniel Bruhl), describes how his mother (Katrin Sass), a true believer in the communist cause, has a heart attack when she sees him being clubbed by police at a protest. She falls into a coma for eight months--during which the Berlin Wall comes down. When she awakens, her fragile health must avoid any shocks, so Alex creates an illusive reality around his bedridden mother to convince her that communism is still alive. Good bye, Lenin! delicately balances wry satire with its rich investment in the lives of Alex, his mother, and other characters around them. Funny, moving, and highly recommended. --Bret FetzerComedy Video
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