Member review

Teenaged Alex Kerner sets himself the formal challenge to obfuscate all evidence that the Berlin Wall has fallen from his post-comatose East German mother Christiane, to prevent any further heart attacks and possible death. The flick comes adorned with a remarkably clever narrative with a dusting of light humour and warmth from the heart and vision of writer and director Wolfgang Becker, who recruits Daniel Brühl to perform all the heartening. Whilst tending to his sick mother, Alex retains a relationship with the hospital nurse Lara, played by Chulpan Khamatova, ultimately forming a cocktail of love and concern as the two are seen to scavenge wheely bins and awkwardly ask neighbours for jar stickers in an attempt to cover up the fact that Christiane’s beloved Spreewald Gherkins have been rebranded from East German to a temporary import. Every little detail of East Germany must remain within the horizon of Christiane (Katrin Saß) from the now ex-communist political views of her friends and family up to the extent of the content she views on her bedside television. Every single one of Alex’s attempts to foil his mother is carried out with precise care in the intention that she must never acquire the dreaded thought that East Germany is no more. It is this which makes watching Goodbye Lenin! such an excitement overshadowed with the dire hope that encapsulated Christiane doesn’t succumb to the suspicion that what she sees before her is all a sham. Despite this, high hopes are kept with Alex’s genius methodology and character confidence. At no point are there any derailments in the plot line; Wolfgang has scribed it with simplicity and ingenious perfection, and has proved the film to be an excellent exhibit within the realm of world cinema. The whole two hours and twenty minutes is undoubtedly a viewing pleasure.