Hey, everyone. "Moriarty" here with some Rumblings From The Lab.
I know nothing about this other than the fact that it’s playing at the AFM here in LA this week. Great timing by this German reader, who liked it enough to send us this review to tell us to keep our eyes open for it in the months ahead.
We all more or less love our mothers, all right. Most of us anyway. A great deal of us would go through quite some trouble for them, too.
But now, imagine the following. You live in East Berlin. The wall has fallen, your country, the German Democratic Republic, has more or less been flushed down the toilet. Your mother, a devoted socialist, however, has not witnessed all this. Through more or less your own fault, she suffered a heart attack and fell into coma.
It is no less than 8 months later that she starts to recover. You are told that any agitations whatsoever will be the death of her. Let alone the news that her beloved GDR has ceased to exist and made way for the unspeakable perils of capitalism.
This is, admittedly, a pretty surreal and unlikely situation, but what would you do?
The protagonist of GOODBYE, LENIN, Alex (Daniel Brühl), makes a suitably surreal decision: He is going to make the GDR come back to life, recreate the country in the little protected world that is the flat he shares not only with his mother (Katrin Sass), but with his sister’s boyfriend, the rather fertile lady herself and two children.
This enterprise is even tougher than it sounds – not only does he have to keep his mother in the flat, but as soon as she is indeed back home, he also faces the problems that come with an entirely new society: All supermarkets are sold out, the groceries his mother wishes for are no longer available. Alex is forced to buy new “Western” products and fill them into “Eastern” packaging. Which he first has to look for in the city’s wastebins, naturally.
You think that’s pretty mad? You ain’t heard nothing yet.
Many more challenges face Alex as he goes on, but only when his mother wishes to watch TV in her room do things really get surreal. At the very latest when Alex creates his own TV news and more and more shapes history to quite the opposite in favour of his crazy plan, will you begin to think: What a sad sad thing to do. But also, what an entertaining one.
This is probably the most loveable German feature in years. Director Wolfgang Becker brings to the screen vivid, loveable characters that, even if you’ve barely any knowledge of the historical background behind the story, you will become increasingly fond of as the story goes on. Lively colours and sharp wit bring joy to the depressing area that was East Berlin until recent years. The acting by established German performers doesn’t hurt either and a whole heap of loveably surreal sidekicks befits the satirical tone of the story which, thankfully, does not lead to your average happy ending.
Sit back and enjoy a universal story about the bliss and curse of family bonds and what love can make us do. Watch as communism finally wins and learn that Coke was actually invented in the GDR ;) .
My point is: Should this little gem ever hit an indie cinema near you – GO SEE. I urge you to.
Been a long time since I’ve seen a German export of any kind. I’ll definitely look for this one, and thanks for the heads-up.
"Moriarty" out.
