Have you heard the one about the woman who went into a coma and didn't wake up until after German reunification? This is the clever premise for Good Bye Lenin, a film by Wolfgang Becker that is both tender and humorous, heartbreaking and romantic.
It's early 1990. Alex (Daniel Brühl), who narrates the film, explains that his mother (Katrin Saß) is a loyal member of the socialist party in East Germany. She adores Lenin, and has pretty much dedicated her life to furthering the ideals of socialism. When she sees her son being arrested at an anti-socialist protest, however, the woman has a heart attack and slips into a coma. Eight months later, she wakes up to a changed world. The doctor assures Alex and his sister that if their mother encounters anything upsetting or shocking, she will almost certainly have another heart attack and die, so Alex decides that they simply won't tell her the whole business about Erich Honecker's resignation and the Wall coming down. They will pretend that nothing has changed.
When their mother comes home, she is bed-bound. In her room, Alex and his sister have constructed a miniature East Germany, cobbled together with artifacts from the past. Most of the foods she is accustomed to eating can't be purchased at the grocery store, so they have to scavenge abandoned houses and yard sales for the brands she asks for. A whole new set of problems occurs when she asks to watch television. None of the East German news programs are still airing, so Alex recruits his best friend (an aspiring filmmaker) to create fake broadcasts in the style of the ones his mother is accustomed to watching. His friend dons a hilarious mustache and poses as the anchorman. From time to time, they have to alter the broadcasts to explain away upsetting occurrences, like the appearance of an enormous Coca-Cola banner on the side of a building outside Alex's mother's window. (The story they devise is that the formula for Coca-Cola was actually developed by East Germans, and that the party leaders had made some kind of deal with the soda manufacturer.)
By this point, it's clear that the lie has taken on a life of its own. It has crawled out of its petrie dish and swallowed the world. But the story never goes totally slapstick, and this is to its credit. This restraint is part of what makes Alex's ridiculous subterfuge feel believable and, more importantly, heroic.
Toward the end of the film, there is a wonderful scene in which Alex's mother discovers she can walk. She crawls out of bed, sneaks past a sleeping Alex, and wanders outside, only to be faced with the changes her family has tried so hard to conceal from her. With an expression of wonder, she takes in the West German cars, the tiger-striped lampshades, the ads for IKEA that are emblazoned across buildings. And then a low-flying helicopter swoops by, with a statue of Lenin swinging from its long cords. Lenin's arm is outstretched toward her like a benevolent biblical figure, and it's as if he is saying good-bye.
I'm giving this film three and a half sticks of doom. The story is delightful, and the Germany it depicts is simultaneously magical and mundane. The cast was perfect, especially Brühl. He has an openness about him that perfectly embodies the desperate idealism his character has inherited from his mother. Alex's elaborate, fabricated world may be just as impractical as socialism in its purest form, but he's absolutely dedicated to it and for the same reason as his mother—love. My only complaint about Good Bye Lenin is that it employs a few gimmicky film techniques—the type of accelerated action shots that make you feel like you're drunk at a carnival—but these only distract a little bit, and the momentary nausea is a small price to pay to experience a movie like this.
Check it out right away. Das macht spaß!