Good Bye, Lenin! [Special Edition]

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German unification during the late-20th Century has been very problematic for everyone involved. The Europeans, the Russians, the Americans, and the Japanese fear that Germany is an economic giant that will re-shape global economics to its advantage, especially through the European Union´s powerful presence. In fact, everyone was so worried about German unification that German leaders avoided using the word re-unification because the "re-" prefix might´ve evoked images of German imperialism.

For the Germans, unification has been a headache because

a) the migration of East Germans to West Germany means the appearance of problems associated with a drastically increased population in some parts of the country;
b) the migration of East Germans to West Germany means the appearance of problems associated with a drastically decreased population in some parts of the country;
c) the dilapidation of the transportation infrastructure in East Germany impedes economic progress in some parts of the country;
d) the suppression of East German history means that East Germans are essentially not allowed to have their own identities even though they had one for more than thirty years.

"Good Bye, Lenin!", a movie about a young man trying to prevent his frail mother from learning about German unification, attempts to address the suppression of the East German identity. For example, in one scene, the protagonist becomes enraged when he is not allowed to exchange his mother´s East German marks for West German marks. He yells at indifferent bankers, "It was YOUR money, too!"

In the movie, Alex (Daniel Bruhl) attends a political demonstration to protest the East German government as well as the Soviet Union during the late-1980s. His mother sees him at the riot, and she suffers a heart attack that sends her into a coma. When she wakes up after eight months, Alex is determined not to shock her into having another heart attack. Therefore, he instigates an elaborate masquerade, pretending that the Berlin Wall never fell. The masquerade involves finding empty jars and cans of no-longer-made East German foods so that he can transfer western European products into them to fool his mother. The masquerade also involves creating fake news broadcasts with his best friend so that his mother can watch TV.

The movie has a very poignant visual motif. The young Alex talks about idolizing an East German cosmonaut, the very first German to go into space. The young Alex dreams of becoming a cosmonaut, too. Later, post-unification, he discovers that his childhood hero has been reduced to being a taxi driver. Almost as bad, as he watches a children´s show with two young West Berliners, Alex ruefully observes that he grew up using the word cosmonaut rather than astronaut. (This is also when Alex refers to himself as being from another country rather than from Germany, which has been co-opted by the West.)

In a sense, as Alex discusses German history and what aspects he´s altering for his mother´s sake, the movie gives viewers a very abbreviated version of what happened in Europe during the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s. At first glance, it may be admirable that a movie is tackling historical material. However, when you think about it, "Good Bye, Lenin!" over-simplifies matters at a time when young people increasingly don´t read in-depth written reports, which means that the movie reflects and intensifies the problems associated with mis-informed populations. Taken on its own, "Good Bye, Lenin!" is half-baked history even as it celebrates healing the German psyche. It´s about politics without being political or authoritatively informative.

I´m not someone who thinks that all movies should be about emotions and entertainment. I think that emotional movies can be about emotions and that entertaining movies can be entertainment. However, movies that comment on historical facts need to be careful about providing contexts for what they´re doing. Otherwise, moviegoers will walk around talking about issues with no real clue about what they´re saying. Sure, those viewers are supposed to go and do research on their own, but how many people are ever really inspired by movies to do outside reading? Oh, they´ll pick up source novels written by Tom Clancy, John Grisham, and Robert Ludlum, or, if we´re lucky, William Shakespeare, the Brontes, and Mary Shelley, but who´ll become avid newspaper readers and historical researchers? Hardly anyone.

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