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Review: Good Bye, Lenin! (2003)
This was a very touching movie about family, roots, home. Despite not knowing too much about East and West Germany, I think this movie approached the story at a personal level. I enjoyed this movie as a drama/comedy.
Spoilers.
Story
Alex Kerner lived with his sister, Ariane, and their mother, Christiane, in East Germany. His father had left the family for West Germany when he was young, and they never saw him again. Alex participated in a protest. His mother watched as he was arrested and suffered a heart attack.
As she lay in a coma, the Berlin wall fell, and life became very different for the family. The university that Ariane attended closed down, and she resorted to working at Burger King and was dating her manager Rainer, who moved in. Alex was laid off from his job, but found a new one installing satellite dishes.
Christiane awoke from her coma. The doctor advised Alex and Ariane to keep her from getting too excited. Thus, Alex launched a plan to keep their mother in the dark about the reunification of Germany, worrying that it would surprise her too much. With the help of his friend Denis Domaschke, who was an amateur filmmaker, he would make fake newscasts to explain odd occurrences, such as the existence of Coca Cola ads in East Germany, or the fact that West Germans were coming to East Germany.
Alex was dating Lara, a woman he had met during the demonstration when he was arrested. She was also the nurse that was taking care of Christiane. She was against the idea of keeping Christiane in the dark, as Alex was enlisting many people to join in on the ruse.
Christiane, Alex, Lara, Ariane, Rainer, and Ariane’s daughter Paula went on a trip to a cottage, where Christiane revealed that her husband Robert hadn’t abandoned the family for another woman. The original plan was for Robert to leave first for a conference. Then Christiane would apply for exit visas with Alex and Ariane. However, Christiane was worried that there’d be problems obtaining the visas, and that her children would be taken away from her, so she instead opted to stay behind. Robert had written letters to the family, which Christiane had hidden from them.
Christiane had another heart attack soon after. Alex sought out their father who was now remarried and had two young children. Alex asked Robert to see Christiane once more, and asked him to keep up the ruse. However, unbeknownst to Alex, Lara had revealed the truth of Germany to Christiane shortly before.
Alex decided to stop the ruse. He enlisted a taxi driver who was either Sigmund Jahn or a lookalike, to act as an authority figure who would announce the reunification of Germany. Christiane died shortly after, and her ashes were sent into the sky as a rocket.
This was a story about family, but also about home. Alex, Ariane, and Christiane had been through a lot and they stuck together despite differences. Keeping up the ruse of the fake Germany was Alex’s way of protecting Christiane, after she’d been through troubles of her own. That being said, this fake Germany was also Alex’s way of bidding farewell to East Germany in his own way. East Germany was his home, even if it wasn’t perfect. Perhaps his fake newscasts were his own way of accepting the new changes. And the send off, with Sigmund Jahn’s announcement, was admitted by Alex to be the sendoff that he felt East Germany deserved, by his hero. I just found the entire story very touching. It was slightly surreal, considering the lengths to which Alex kept up the deception, but I could understand why he would do such a thing.
Production
The production value was good. I had no complaints. I also have no frame of reference for Germany at this time, but nothing about it took me out. Nothing about this movie was distracting.
The acting was pretty good too. I think all of the actors did a good job of straddling that line between serious and comedic, as there were various moments in the movie that required both from them.
Characters
Alexander Kerner
Alex was our main character. As a youngster, he idolized Sigmund Jahn, the cosmonaut. For the most part, he lived a happy life with his family. After his father left their family, Christiane lived at an institution for a while. Alex and Ariane would visit often, and Alex often pleaded for her to come home. She did return home, and they never spoke of his father again. From then on, Christiane threw her life into community work. As an adult, Alex worked at a TV repair shop. He had joined the demonstration and was arrested, only released so that he could see to his mother who was in the hospital.
In hindsight, it felt like Alex suggested the idea of the fake news as a way for him to better accept the reunification. Ariane was in favour of keeping their mother in his hospital, but I think Alex saw it as an opportunity. But why was that? Life was pretty good under reunified Germany, wasn’t it? While the movie showed Alex discovering new and fascinating things in reunified Germany, and he had even found a girlfriend, I think there was likely a part of him that was homesick. At the end of the movie, he said that the association between East Germany and his mother were very strong (probably due to her extensive public service). So I think he held on to the idea of East Germany because he didn’t want his mother to change either. In comparison, Ariane seemed more willing to move on, especially considering how she was not really interested in meeting their father, at least not yet.
Alex sought out their father for the purpose of getting him to meet Christiane, but I do believe that he needed more closure on that end. It seemed like even from a young age, he was concerned with keeping the family together. And while Ariane already told him that their father already had a new family, I think Alex at least wanted to see for himself if their father was that man he imagined him to be.
Alex bumped into who he thought was Sigmund Jahn as a taxi driver. The man denied being Sigmund Jahn, but when Alex asked him how the view was from up there, he responded that it was beautiful, but not like being on earth. Like Alex, Jahn longed for home despite having achieved greatness.
Perhaps it was meeting their father that helped Alex come to terms with the reunification. After all, if his mother represented East Germany, then his father who had fled probably to some degree represented West Germany. West Germany wasn’t some unknown now, it had a more tangible form to Alex, and maybe he felt it wasn’t so scary living in this combined Germany now. He wrote the false newscast to announce the reunification of Germany, implying that one’s values did not change just because you were in a new world, and your old home did not exist. His mother was still his mother if East Germany did not exist. Nothing about the reunification changed the fact that the Kerner family was from East Germany.
This was a beautiful story of Alex finally finding closure for himself about a lost home.
Christiane Kerner
We first met Christiane as she was being interrogated about her husband who seemed to have Western associates due to the nature of his work. After their father fled, she was put in an institution where she seemed somewhat unresponsive to Alex’s pleas, and his affections. We could see at that moment, but Christiane later explained to her children that she was very distraught by the experience. It was likely the interrogation and intimidation that struck fear into Christiane and kept her from attempting to flee with the children. As a result, she forgot any plans of going to West Germany, going so far as to hide her husband’s letters, and she threw herself into East German community.
Even in Alex and Ariane’s adulthood, Christiane seemed to be a somewhat stern and cold woman. I don’t think she was without love at all, but she was likely very shaken by her experience. We know for a fact that she held love for her children, or else she would not have been so afraid to be parted from them.
After Christiane awoke from her coma, she could still sense that things weren’t quite right when Alex and Ariane were constantly hiding things from her. But she went along with it, not thinking that there could be any big issue. I do think there was a part of Christiane’s mind that collected these odd occurrences though. This was because she hadn’t revealed to Alex that Lara had told her about the German reunification, and continued on with his ruse. So I think she’s better at hiding her thoughts than Alex realized, and she figured out that this was Alex’s own way of processing the reunification.
I am pleased that Christiane had a reunion with Robert. They spoke for hours, as would have been expected. They’d have much to catch up on. I don’t think there was likely any ill will between them. Christiane didn’t blame Robert at all for not having come back. It would have been too dangerous. But I think Robert also would have understood Christiane’s fears.
Christiane passed away shortly after Alex’s grand send off. And she went the way of the cosmonauts, which is as romantic as can get, at least in Alex’s eyes.
Ariane Kerner
Ariane was Alex’s sister. She was a single mom, who was attending university, until her university shut down in the German reunification. She then began to work at Burger King and started dating her manager who later moved in.
Ariane seemed to me more willing to move on more practical, and perhaps it was simply because she had to, being a mother. She had to look out for Paula, and Paula’s life was the future. She needed to make money to support Paula, so she found a job. She was in favour of keeping their mother in the hospital where they’d be able to monitor her best.
Ariane was also not so willing to reconnect with their father. She first encountered him while working at the drive through, and was shaken from the experience. Seeing that he had two children probably was a bit of a shock too. I don’t know if that built resentment or not, but she knew she was not ready to face him. I think searching for the letters was a more removed way of reconciling her feelings, as she could deal with them on her own first. But when she saw him at the hospital, she was not read to meet him and turned away.
I simply think Ariane keeps her feelings closer. When Christiane was in the institution, she was not as pleading or affectionate as Alex was, but she did still visit Christiane regularly. I simply think that Ariane is more practical. She’s always hustling for the family, for Paula, and now she and Rainer are expecting another child. But I do think that she’ll resolve her emotions in her own way, in time.
Lara
Lara was a nursing student from the USSR who had helped Alex in a demonstration. They met again as she was taking care of Christiane in hospital, and she and Alex started dating. The one point of contention between Alex and Rainer was that Lara didn’t think it was right to go to such means to keep up the deception.
I didn’t think of this while I was watching, but I wonder if it was purposeful that Lara was written to be a character from the USSR, which would dissolve after the German reunification. Perhaps it didn’t occur to Lara how much Alex’s life changed because of East Germany’s dissolution. And that was because her nation still technically existed. Sort of.
In the end, Lara revealed the truth to Christiane, who was shocked, but Lara powered on. Though it was heavy handed and probably not her call, it did seem that Christiane took the news better than Alex imagined that she would.
Rainer
Rainer was Ariane’s boyfriend. He was a West German. He seemed to be a more hedonistic guy. He liked enjoying himself, and seemed to always be chilling while Ariane was working, despite being her boss. Did he change jobs? I’m not sure.
In the scene where Ariane had returned home upset after seeing Robert, Rainer was arguing with Alex. Rainer said that East Germans were always complaining. Christiane was always writing her petitions (with Mrs. Schafer), Alex and Ariane were always frustrated with one thing or another. He may be right, but I think that’s also a bit unfair. The reason why Christiane wrote petitions was because that was how people made their thoughts known in the society she came from. People in West Germany and even a reunified Germany made their thoughts known in a different way, probably. And Alex was under a lot of stress, taking care of an ill mother and also simply not having a country to return to. It was a little insensitive of Rainer to say that imo.
Robert Kerner
At the beginning of the movie, I was inclined to believe Robert to be a bad man, considering he had left the family and never returned. I believe Alex and Ariane were under the impression that he had left the family for another woman and that furthered the narrative. Ariane seeing Robert with a new family didn’t really deviate from that narrative either.
When Alex met Robert, that was a different story. He seemed a kindly man. He did not react negatively to seeing Alex, simply wanting more time to speak with him. Robert also seemed receptive to meeting up with Christiane and the family. To him, they did not leave on bad terms, only unfortunate circumstances. Robert was puzzled by Alex’s ruse and didn’t want to follow it, but did so because Alex insisted.
Judging by the fact that Robert and Christiane spoke for hours, I want to believe that they remained on good terms, even if Robert was married to another woman and had another family then.
Themes
Values
When Christiane returned to her family after being institutionalized, she threw herself into public service and being an upstanding citizen. I think that is how most people imagine socialist countries to be, to be the morality police. However, Christiane actually worked a lot on the behalf of common people. She was writing petitions on behalf of citizens of East Germany. I think Christiane’s core value was simply kindness and sympathy. She just wanted to help people, to be kind.
When Christiane found out about the “West German” refugees, she desperately wanted to help. I think the false announcement that Alex wrote was in line with Christine’s values, that in any country, Christiane could continue to be a good neighbour.
Home
Alex was processing his statelessness through his mother and through those false newscasts. He had said that the truth would be too extreme for Christiane, so he presented them in a way that was perhaps gentler and more palatable. Perhaps that was for himself too.
As mentioned, when he spoke to Jahn, or the Jahn lookalike, both agreed that even if they’re somewhere where it’s beautiful, it’s not quite home. And I think that is something that everyone can relate to.
The least that Alex could do was to give East Germany the send off that he wanted, delivered by his childhood hero Sigmund Jahn (or a version of him). Jahn gave hopes that all citizens (including Alex) could continue to be their best selves no matter where they were.
Overall
This was a very touching movie. I really appreciated it. Would recommend.
Spoilers.
Story
Alex Kerner lived with his sister, Ariane, and their mother, Christiane, in East Germany. His father had left the family for West Germany when he was young, and they never saw him again. Alex participated in a protest. His mother watched as he was arrested and suffered a heart attack.
As she lay in a coma, the Berlin wall fell, and life became very different for the family. The university that Ariane attended closed down, and she resorted to working at Burger King and was dating her manager Rainer, who moved in. Alex was laid off from his job, but found a new one installing satellite dishes.
Christiane awoke from her coma. The doctor advised Alex and Ariane to keep her from getting too excited. Thus, Alex launched a plan to keep their mother in the dark about the reunification of Germany, worrying that it would surprise her too much. With the help of his friend Denis Domaschke, who was an amateur filmmaker, he would make fake newscasts to explain odd occurrences, such as the existence of Coca Cola ads in East Germany, or the fact that West Germans were coming to East Germany.
Alex was dating Lara, a woman he had met during the demonstration when he was arrested. She was also the nurse that was taking care of Christiane. She was against the idea of keeping Christiane in the dark, as Alex was enlisting many people to join in on the ruse.
Christiane, Alex, Lara, Ariane, Rainer, and Ariane’s daughter Paula went on a trip to a cottage, where Christiane revealed that her husband Robert hadn’t abandoned the family for another woman. The original plan was for Robert to leave first for a conference. Then Christiane would apply for exit visas with Alex and Ariane. However, Christiane was worried that there’d be problems obtaining the visas, and that her children would be taken away from her, so she instead opted to stay behind. Robert had written letters to the family, which Christiane had hidden from them.
Christiane had another heart attack soon after. Alex sought out their father who was now remarried and had two young children. Alex asked Robert to see Christiane once more, and asked him to keep up the ruse. However, unbeknownst to Alex, Lara had revealed the truth of Germany to Christiane shortly before.
Alex decided to stop the ruse. He enlisted a taxi driver who was either Sigmund Jahn or a lookalike, to act as an authority figure who would announce the reunification of Germany. Christiane died shortly after, and her ashes were sent into the sky as a rocket.
This was a story about family, but also about home. Alex, Ariane, and Christiane had been through a lot and they stuck together despite differences. Keeping up the ruse of the fake Germany was Alex’s way of protecting Christiane, after she’d been through troubles of her own. That being said, this fake Germany was also Alex’s way of bidding farewell to East Germany in his own way. East Germany was his home, even if it wasn’t perfect. Perhaps his fake newscasts were his own way of accepting the new changes. And the send off, with Sigmund Jahn’s announcement, was admitted by Alex to be the sendoff that he felt East Germany deserved, by his hero. I just found the entire story very touching. It was slightly surreal, considering the lengths to which Alex kept up the deception, but I could understand why he would do such a thing.
Production
The production value was good. I had no complaints. I also have no frame of reference for Germany at this time, but nothing about it took me out. Nothing about this movie was distracting.
The acting was pretty good too. I think all of the actors did a good job of straddling that line between serious and comedic, as there were various moments in the movie that required both from them.
Characters
Alexander Kerner
Alex was our main character. As a youngster, he idolized Sigmund Jahn, the cosmonaut. For the most part, he lived a happy life with his family. After his father left their family, Christiane lived at an institution for a while. Alex and Ariane would visit often, and Alex often pleaded for her to come home. She did return home, and they never spoke of his father again. From then on, Christiane threw her life into community work. As an adult, Alex worked at a TV repair shop. He had joined the demonstration and was arrested, only released so that he could see to his mother who was in the hospital.
In hindsight, it felt like Alex suggested the idea of the fake news as a way for him to better accept the reunification. Ariane was in favour of keeping their mother in his hospital, but I think Alex saw it as an opportunity. But why was that? Life was pretty good under reunified Germany, wasn’t it? While the movie showed Alex discovering new and fascinating things in reunified Germany, and he had even found a girlfriend, I think there was likely a part of him that was homesick. At the end of the movie, he said that the association between East Germany and his mother were very strong (probably due to her extensive public service). So I think he held on to the idea of East Germany because he didn’t want his mother to change either. In comparison, Ariane seemed more willing to move on, especially considering how she was not really interested in meeting their father, at least not yet.
Alex sought out their father for the purpose of getting him to meet Christiane, but I do believe that he needed more closure on that end. It seemed like even from a young age, he was concerned with keeping the family together. And while Ariane already told him that their father already had a new family, I think Alex at least wanted to see for himself if their father was that man he imagined him to be.
Alex bumped into who he thought was Sigmund Jahn as a taxi driver. The man denied being Sigmund Jahn, but when Alex asked him how the view was from up there, he responded that it was beautiful, but not like being on earth. Like Alex, Jahn longed for home despite having achieved greatness.
Perhaps it was meeting their father that helped Alex come to terms with the reunification. After all, if his mother represented East Germany, then his father who had fled probably to some degree represented West Germany. West Germany wasn’t some unknown now, it had a more tangible form to Alex, and maybe he felt it wasn’t so scary living in this combined Germany now. He wrote the false newscast to announce the reunification of Germany, implying that one’s values did not change just because you were in a new world, and your old home did not exist. His mother was still his mother if East Germany did not exist. Nothing about the reunification changed the fact that the Kerner family was from East Germany.
This was a beautiful story of Alex finally finding closure for himself about a lost home.
Christiane Kerner
We first met Christiane as she was being interrogated about her husband who seemed to have Western associates due to the nature of his work. After their father fled, she was put in an institution where she seemed somewhat unresponsive to Alex’s pleas, and his affections. We could see at that moment, but Christiane later explained to her children that she was very distraught by the experience. It was likely the interrogation and intimidation that struck fear into Christiane and kept her from attempting to flee with the children. As a result, she forgot any plans of going to West Germany, going so far as to hide her husband’s letters, and she threw herself into East German community.
Even in Alex and Ariane’s adulthood, Christiane seemed to be a somewhat stern and cold woman. I don’t think she was without love at all, but she was likely very shaken by her experience. We know for a fact that she held love for her children, or else she would not have been so afraid to be parted from them.
After Christiane awoke from her coma, she could still sense that things weren’t quite right when Alex and Ariane were constantly hiding things from her. But she went along with it, not thinking that there could be any big issue. I do think there was a part of Christiane’s mind that collected these odd occurrences though. This was because she hadn’t revealed to Alex that Lara had told her about the German reunification, and continued on with his ruse. So I think she’s better at hiding her thoughts than Alex realized, and she figured out that this was Alex’s own way of processing the reunification.
I am pleased that Christiane had a reunion with Robert. They spoke for hours, as would have been expected. They’d have much to catch up on. I don’t think there was likely any ill will between them. Christiane didn’t blame Robert at all for not having come back. It would have been too dangerous. But I think Robert also would have understood Christiane’s fears.
Christiane passed away shortly after Alex’s grand send off. And she went the way of the cosmonauts, which is as romantic as can get, at least in Alex’s eyes.
Ariane Kerner
Ariane was Alex’s sister. She was a single mom, who was attending university, until her university shut down in the German reunification. She then began to work at Burger King and started dating her manager who later moved in.
Ariane seemed to me more willing to move on more practical, and perhaps it was simply because she had to, being a mother. She had to look out for Paula, and Paula’s life was the future. She needed to make money to support Paula, so she found a job. She was in favour of keeping their mother in the hospital where they’d be able to monitor her best.
Ariane was also not so willing to reconnect with their father. She first encountered him while working at the drive through, and was shaken from the experience. Seeing that he had two children probably was a bit of a shock too. I don’t know if that built resentment or not, but she knew she was not ready to face him. I think searching for the letters was a more removed way of reconciling her feelings, as she could deal with them on her own first. But when she saw him at the hospital, she was not read to meet him and turned away.
I simply think Ariane keeps her feelings closer. When Christiane was in the institution, she was not as pleading or affectionate as Alex was, but she did still visit Christiane regularly. I simply think that Ariane is more practical. She’s always hustling for the family, for Paula, and now she and Rainer are expecting another child. But I do think that she’ll resolve her emotions in her own way, in time.
Lara
Lara was a nursing student from the USSR who had helped Alex in a demonstration. They met again as she was taking care of Christiane in hospital, and she and Alex started dating. The one point of contention between Alex and Rainer was that Lara didn’t think it was right to go to such means to keep up the deception.
I didn’t think of this while I was watching, but I wonder if it was purposeful that Lara was written to be a character from the USSR, which would dissolve after the German reunification. Perhaps it didn’t occur to Lara how much Alex’s life changed because of East Germany’s dissolution. And that was because her nation still technically existed. Sort of.
In the end, Lara revealed the truth to Christiane, who was shocked, but Lara powered on. Though it was heavy handed and probably not her call, it did seem that Christiane took the news better than Alex imagined that she would.
Rainer
Rainer was Ariane’s boyfriend. He was a West German. He seemed to be a more hedonistic guy. He liked enjoying himself, and seemed to always be chilling while Ariane was working, despite being her boss. Did he change jobs? I’m not sure.
In the scene where Ariane had returned home upset after seeing Robert, Rainer was arguing with Alex. Rainer said that East Germans were always complaining. Christiane was always writing her petitions (with Mrs. Schafer), Alex and Ariane were always frustrated with one thing or another. He may be right, but I think that’s also a bit unfair. The reason why Christiane wrote petitions was because that was how people made their thoughts known in the society she came from. People in West Germany and even a reunified Germany made their thoughts known in a different way, probably. And Alex was under a lot of stress, taking care of an ill mother and also simply not having a country to return to. It was a little insensitive of Rainer to say that imo.
Robert Kerner
At the beginning of the movie, I was inclined to believe Robert to be a bad man, considering he had left the family and never returned. I believe Alex and Ariane were under the impression that he had left the family for another woman and that furthered the narrative. Ariane seeing Robert with a new family didn’t really deviate from that narrative either.
When Alex met Robert, that was a different story. He seemed a kindly man. He did not react negatively to seeing Alex, simply wanting more time to speak with him. Robert also seemed receptive to meeting up with Christiane and the family. To him, they did not leave on bad terms, only unfortunate circumstances. Robert was puzzled by Alex’s ruse and didn’t want to follow it, but did so because Alex insisted.
Judging by the fact that Robert and Christiane spoke for hours, I want to believe that they remained on good terms, even if Robert was married to another woman and had another family then.
Themes
Values
When Christiane returned to her family after being institutionalized, she threw herself into public service and being an upstanding citizen. I think that is how most people imagine socialist countries to be, to be the morality police. However, Christiane actually worked a lot on the behalf of common people. She was writing petitions on behalf of citizens of East Germany. I think Christiane’s core value was simply kindness and sympathy. She just wanted to help people, to be kind.
When Christiane found out about the “West German” refugees, she desperately wanted to help. I think the false announcement that Alex wrote was in line with Christine’s values, that in any country, Christiane could continue to be a good neighbour.
Home
Alex was processing his statelessness through his mother and through those false newscasts. He had said that the truth would be too extreme for Christiane, so he presented them in a way that was perhaps gentler and more palatable. Perhaps that was for himself too.
As mentioned, when he spoke to Jahn, or the Jahn lookalike, both agreed that even if they’re somewhere where it’s beautiful, it’s not quite home. And I think that is something that everyone can relate to.
The least that Alex could do was to give East Germany the send off that he wanted, delivered by his childhood hero Sigmund Jahn (or a version of him). Jahn gave hopes that all citizens (including Alex) could continue to be their best selves no matter where they were.
Overall
This was a very touching movie. I really appreciated it. Would recommend.