Plot Details: This opinion reveals major details about the movie's plot.

What would it be like to have your entire world ripped asunder from you? To go to sleep one day in one world and awake in an entirely different one? This is exactly what happened to the citizens of the former nation of the Deutsche Demokratische Republik, otherwise known as East Germany, in 1989 when the wall fell and Germany became whole once again.

In Goodbye, Lenin, director Wolfgang Becker examines just how this traumatic period in history effects an East German family, and how they cope with a world turned suddenly upside down. To be sure, the film is full of heart-wrenching moments. Still, it is a thorough enough examination of the human condition to also include the moments of levity that frequently accompany the serious events.

Alexander Kerner (Daniel Bruhl) is your average kid with your average concerns. He just happens to live in your not so average Socialist republic. Still, he has his astronaut heroes, and tries to get by as best as he can, even when his father seemingly abandons the family for a woman in the West.

This is more than his poor mother (Katrin Sass) can bear, and she slips into a near catatonic state for a time as a result. When she finally emerges, every ounce of her energy is devoted to the glory of the State. She’s the perfect comrade, living only to serve her beloved Fatherland.

Until the day she sees Alex arrested at an anti-government protest. The shock is too much for her, and she suffers a heart attack and slips into a coma. Ever the devoted son, Alex stays by her side as much as he can until she unexpectedly emerges-a full eight months later.

By that time, the wall has fallen and East Germany is no more. But Alex’s poor mother can’t handle any great shock, or so her doctors advise. And thus begins Alex’s descent into a fantasy world as he attempts to preserve a modicum of the old Socialist state in the family flat. He’s determined to convince his mother that socialism lives-and he’s increasingly caught up in the deceptions as they proceed.

Good Bye Lenin works on a multitude of levels. Were the film simply a tale of a son’s devotion to his mother, it would be a very convincing one indeed. In that respect, this is a touching movie, one that examines in depth a mother-son relationship that holds together strongly despite deception on the part of both. In the end, each learns how the other has not been truthful to the other, yet both forgive.

Beyond that, though, there is the greater allegory of a people losing touch with their past, and their roots. Difficult as it may seem to those of us raised in the West, some in East Germany waxed nostalgic over their lost past. Indeed, there are even moments when the film makes us stop and reconsider the hectic hustle and bustle of our own daily rat-race. Perhaps, just perhaps mind you, there is a happy medium between socialism and capitalism that we’ve yet to explore. Such is the message of this film.

Good Bye Lenin is full of poignant moments, but few are so striking as that in which Alex’s mother ventures out for the first time on her own into the emerging reunified Germany. As she stares uncomprehendingly at billboards hawking women’s undergarments and expensive automobiles, a helicopter passes by carrying a huge statue of Lenin.

As she watches, Lenin seems to beckon to her with outstretched hand, perhaps enticing her to follow into oblivion. The moment is dramatic and touching-and one of many in the film.

The acting here is convincing. Bruhl is especially good as he is increasingly caught up in his little white lie, which is getting bigger and bigger all the time. Most of all, though, it’s the emotion of the film that captivates the viewer. This is a story of real people in real situations. And it’s a very, very good one at that.

Other German cinema of note:

Das Boot

Stalingrad

Downfall (Der Untergang)

Das Leben der Anderen (The Lives of Others)

Recommended: Yes

Viewing Format: DVD
Video Occasion: Fit for Friday Evening
Suitability For Children: Suitable for Children up Ages 8