Good Bye Lenin - Film Review

Ideologies are powerful weapons. Nevertheless, they betray a peculiar tendency of blinding or insulating the ‘believer’ from an existence beyond it. The struggle of an individual to hold on to the remnants of his ideals, which tend to vanish with changing times, have formed the basis of many appealing dramatic and cinematic conflicts. However, what makes the 2003 German movie Good Bye Lenin stand out from the rest, is the fact that it is a non-believer’s (Alex’s ) journey to ‘restore’ an ideology which he personally considers unrealistic , if not dead and buried.

Throughout Good Bye Lenin, we see the protagonist’s tale of struggle, failure and success at maintaining a social and political environment at his home, which is akin to the German pre-Unification condition. This is the central irony of the film, which forms the core of the narrative.

Alex or Alexander has had a troubled childhood. The Communists had exiled his father to West Germany. His mother on the other hand, has always been a firebrand socialist and a successful comrade. Due to her strict adherence to an orthodox ideology, she had to sacrifice her marital bliss and even deprive Alex of his father’s love.

However, when she suffers a major heart- attack and paralysis, the young man takes up the challenge of creating his mother’s ‘Germany’ – an entity that no longer existed since her illness.

Despite the best of intentions, recreating a dead world is never easy. Alex, our narrator-hero, learns this the hard way. The Berlin Wall has already fallen and there is no more of the good old Berlin. Globalization has crept into the vacuum created by the disappearing Communist social order. When Alex arranges for a birthday party for his paralyzed mother and invites her colleagues, ex-school principal, the neighbours and her students, we suddenly perceive the emergence of a new Alex. He has matured overnight into a man. After all, celebrating an ideology that one cannot identify with requires a great deal of courage and maturity. Then again, with his friend’s help, he recreates her favourite T.V programmes and even supplies her with the old pro-Communist newspapers and magazines. The tale is that of growing up- a journey into the Blakean world of experience.

Perhaps the most touching moment in the film is when we see Alex rummaging in the dustbin for an empty bottle of a particular brand of pickle- his mother’s favourite – which has been suddenly replaced in the market with cheaper foreign equivalents. When she cherishes the ‘pickle’ (made by her son at home), we join Alex in his celebration of motherhood.

In another remarkable episode in the film, we see the son appeasing the mother, who has been agitated by seeing a Coca Cola billboard. Alex fabricates the ludicrous ‘fact’ that scientists have discovered the ‘real’ recipe of Coca Cola as being German in origin.Wolfgang Becker, the director, makes us laugh at the mother’s naivety. He also forces us to ask questions at ourselves. Has it ever been a war of ideologies? Or is it the battle of our own inflated egos, which fails to let bygones be bygones?
The charade that Alex maintains with his mother ultimately breaks down. In fact, there is a double irony here. While showing a doctored news capsule, Alex believes that he has been successful in hiding the ‘bitter’ truth of the Unification from her. But we, the audience know, what he does not! His mother is now conscious of the truth but prefers to keep mum. She fully reciprocates the son’s immense love for her with her silence.

Becker has certainly created what Alex realizes at the end -“I have created a country that never existed that way”. The climax of Good Bye Lenin is reached with a significant sequence, which shows a helicopter carrying a bust of Lenin’s statue. She comes face to face with the harsh reality and pitifully ‘asks’ for help. She suddenly feels herself in an abyss, a vacuum, created by the annihilation of everything that she believed in. It is a moment of epiphany for us too. Ideologies often fail us. Or perhaps it has all being play-acting. Ideologies may never have really existed in the first place!

But then, closer home we see this extraordinary film being prevented from screening at the Kolkata Film Festival. The reason was merely the name, which sounded offensive to certain ears unaccustomed at acknowledging realities! Perhaps few things, especially ‘ideologies’ that tend to alienate people, are best said a final adieu when its time gets over.

Edited by : Pranab Ganguly
Date: 10.08.2008
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