Goodbye Lenin.

I think I have found a way and it is to present some reflections that, based on German authors, films, TV series, have influenced my life story. Today I begin a series about German films that have had a strong impact on my life.

My approach will be more phenomenological, that is, I will describe how it impacts me, what experiences I generate from coming into contact with the film, and what interpretations and discoveries I arrive at in relation to these experiences.

The film is titled in English: <b> “Good bye Lenin”</b> by Wolfgang Becker. Coincidentally, it turned 20 in 2023. Since I saw it in the early 2000s, I described it as a captivating work of cinema. I'm not going to say that it is one of my favorites, but seeing it was an experience that I would gladly repeat several times.

Context

Set at the time of the reunification of Germany, the film places us in a crucial historical period (between October 1989 and April 1990), where political and social tensions were at the surface. There we met a family of three, mother, eldest daughter and youngest son living in the GDR. The mother, a faithful defender of the ways and means of the socialist regime, finds in rhetoric and letter writing ways to put the system in her favor. The father had supposedly abandoned them, fleeing to the western (capitalist) side, so the children never heard from him again.

OSTALGIE?

The film itself is a systemic story, with readings on several levels. Part of a comedy with a core in a family drama, intimate and full of nostalgia, (I understand if I'm not mistaken that the German term <b>”OSTALGIE”</b> exists) that shows us how that process of change and reunification in a nation that for a long time was divided by a wall that crossed it.

At a political level, it exposes the positive and negative of each economic system, and more deeply the effect of what is novel and attractive on the individual mentality, consumerism and individualism vs. the search for the common good. Also how political structures can fossilize without adapting to what is different and new.

On the family side, it tells us about the love of children for their parents, and about the lies and family secrets that, when hidden, lead us to believe the stories that our parents tell us. What is exemplified in the scene in which the mother reveals to them that she lied about her father's abandonment of her and it was she who decided not to go with him.

Individually it becomes a powerful metaphor for the flow of change and resistance to change. Which in my opinion is represented by the protagonist.

The protagonist

Alex, the central character, speaks to me about naivety, unconditional love, commitment and stubbornness. Trying to handle the weight of guilt over his mother's illness. Who goes into a coma just before learning about the fall of the Berlin Wall. Alex implements an entire plot (of love) to recreate for his convalescing mother a bubble of Democratic Germany where they lived, making her believe that the wall is still standing. Alex relives the socialist way of life in the small room around his mother.

Through ingenious montages and humorous and absurd situations, the film shows us Alex's dedication and determination to protect his mother from a reality that has changed drastically. Although personally, I think his unconscious ulterior motive was to protect himself and return to those times in his life when everything was “fine.”

Our protagonist, in his desire to protect his mother, sacrifices his own identity and immerses himself in constant deception. The film makes us question how far we would go for love and loyalty. It is Alex who resists the change that the reunification of Germany brings with it.

As a closing

I chose to focus my reflection on this film towards the process of change and the human tendency to stay in what is known and stable. Each character describes to us what this process can be like:

The mother chooses to face change, fleeing from it, even at the cost of her life. The impression she gives me is that she really knew from the beginning and just followed the game played by her son.

Alex himself resists change, dividing himself in two, striving to maintain a socialist world, he enters falsehood. Which also does not allow him to finish accepting or adapting to the world outside the bubble. Without wanting to let go of what was.

The Sister, for her part, represents the process of surrendering to change, practically without reflection. Without processing the mourning for what was lost.

The film directs me to connect change with winning and losing, change invites me to be someone different. Not changing keeps me in structures that can become rigid and imprisoning of myself. Changing hurts because it brings losses, stopping being who you were.

Flow may be the answer, although at first I resist it.

Thanks for getting here.

Friends,

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Good Bye Lenin Technical sheet on Wikipedia