Thought I’d mention that yesterday’s blog title was a riff on the movie Good Bye Lenin!, a fun little German film from 2004. As the story goes, it’s 1989 in East Germany, just months before tourists (like me, in July 1990) took hammers and chisels to snub the Hammer & Sickle and crack up the graffiti-skinned Wall for souvenirs. A proudly socialist mom has a heart attack watching her son being arrested for protesting against the Party. She falls into a coma, and wakes up with a dangerously weak heart eight months later when the regime has fallen.
To keep his mother alive, Alex creates an elaborate ruse to turn her apartment into a time capsule of sorts, effectively shielding her from the shocking news of spreading capitalism that might wind her ticker down. At one point he goes so far as to videotape fake newscasts to show her as live TV.
It’s mostly hijinks-with-a-heart (and subtitles), but I found it to be pretty good fun, and the critics gave it a decent boost with 84% fresh on Rotten Tomatoes. Alles gut, dasvidanya….
Posted by: Colin Mangham