GOODBYE LENIN

 

This humorous and touching film shows a pro-communist family experience the fall of the Berlin wall and the effects from it. 

The mother who has a passion for her country with anti-western views, suffers a heart attack when seeing her son attacked my police in Berlin in a protest parade. She falls into a long coma, and wakes up when the Berlin Wall has fallen and everything in East Germany has finally been influenced by the west. Banners, billboards and commercials start flooding the city, advertising all sorts such as Coca-Cola. 

The doctor orders the family to not shock their newly woken mother, as the consequences could result in her death, so they have to conceal everything from her and pretend that nothing has changed. As she is bed bound, this is possible by closing the blinds in her bedroom and thy go back to wearing their old clothes.

However when she asks to watch the T.V or for typical german food which has ben replaced by westernised versions, it gets more complicated and her son and daughter have to go on the hunt for old jars to refill and make their own version of the news by making homemade videos. 

The film is really funny, and gives you a great sense of how it must have felt to experience the fall of the wall and it's outcomes without being too political or serious. The film is almost like the reverse of what has happened in Sao Paulo.