This is the first of four German movies being shown on Tuesdays in April as part of a German Film Festival. The other three are: Fitzcarraldo (1982) by Werner Herzog a film about opera on the Amazon in Peru and Brazil over 100 years ago, which is being shown as part of the Maitisong Film Festival; Bella Martha (2002) by Sandra Nettelbeck, the story of a gourmet cook at the Lido in Hamburg who can stir up a storm in her kitchens, but is at loss the rest of the day and night; and Anatomie (1999) by Stefan Ruzowitzky, a cult-terror movie about cadaver happenings in an elite anatomy laboratory in Heidelberg.
Good Bye, Lenin!, directed by Wolfgang Becker to a script by Becker and Bernd Lichtenberg, is one of the most delightful films to come out of Germany recently. The stars, Daniel Brühl and Katrin Sass are two very experienced actors. The film has won many awards.
What lingers with you a long time after seeing this movie are some amazing images that are outlandish, captivating and challenging all at once. One, for example, is of a giant bust of the revolutionary leader Lenin floating in space, suspended under a roving helicopter that seems not to know where to take him. It is as if Christiane Kerner (played by Katrin Sass) was a magnet keeping Lenin from being removed to the scrapheap. At times he seems to come so close that he could just reach out his bronze hand and shake, “Good Bye”, to Christiane!
Another image is of thousands of marks of useless, expired, East German currency, being scattered from a roof top by Alex Kerner (Daniel Brühl) and his charming Russian girlfriend, Lara (Chulpan Khamatova). Roof top events always seem to be accompanied by extraordinary fireworks.
Then there is the theme of space travel and rocket launching, including Germany’s first cosmonaut (Stefan Walz) that runs through the film and uniquely ties it together. And the phony news reporting done, often with great difficulty, by Alex’s comrade and friend Denis (Florian Lukas). One news snip is designed to explain why a giant red banner advertising Coca-Cola rolled down a wall across from Christiane’s bedroom window. The film begins in 1978 and shows how Christiane is married to socialist activism. Then from 1979 it leaps to 1989 and the 40th anniversary of GDR (German Democratic Republic, or East Germany).
The premise of this film is very simple: that Alex, his sister Ariane (Maria Simon) and her new mate Rainer (Alexander Beyer) would change the world to keep their mother alive. Is Alex’s love of his mother really so overwhelming? Christiane has had one heart attack, been in a coma for months and any new shock would kill her. Alex believes she was such a good socialist that news of the fall of the Berlin Wall may be too much for her. So when Christiane is returning home from the hospital, Alex sets about recreating the era of Communist East Germany in the area around her. Instead they create an illusion of an East Germany they wish had been a reality. The movie’s sly and cynical humour is found in all the contradictions entertained and its subtle critique of Western culture. The film actually becomes Christiane’s Secrets and Lies.
Good Bye, Lenin! is one hour and 58 minutes long (Rated 16 plus for language and nudity) in German with English sub-titles. The cinematographer is Martin Kukula. Katja De Bock and Andreas Schreitmüller are the editors. The original music is by the French composer Yann Tiersen who did the music for Amélie.
