Goodbye, Lenin!

Reviewed by Steve Dickson

In Communist East Berlin shortly before the fall of the Wall, Christiane (Katrin Sass), a staunch though mildly critical communist, abandoned by her wall-jumping husband falls into a coma seeing her son Alex arrested at an anti-government demonstration.
Before she awakes, Communist East Germany disappears; her daughter gives up college to serve Burger-King meals; her son now fits satellite aerials.
On her awakening, her son being informed that she must suffer no excitement conceives the plan of re-creating her bedroom and the East Germany that surrounded it. There follows the main comic impulse of the film as he tries to find now discarded products; pays young " patriots" to sing the so-quickly discarded songs (for 20 DM); gathers former colleagues for celebrations that are for them requiems for their former world.
Inevitably, the transformed world outside begins to invade the bed-ridden mother's consciousness. As new-found would-be film-making friend, Alex is forced into a series of increasingly hilarious fake news broadcasts that attempt to explain the puzzling events the mother obliquely becomes aware of (relayed through video to the unsuspecting mother's TV).
As the film evolves, we learn of family lies that have kept the mother, son and daughter together; and a beautiful fugue of deceit is made clear. Past and current lies are replayed until the film resolves into a table-turning, yet necessary lie.
This is an exquisite film, that belies the ignorant oxymoronic label of "German comedy". A delicious, humorous, subtle and deeply intelligent film about frustrated dreams and the need for lies - at the state, familial and personal level.
The film-making is deft (only some unnecessarily speeded-up sequences striking a false note), culminating in a stunning central sequence where the mother, striking-out alone, wanders into a world she can no longer recognise.
The central performances of Daniel Bruehl and Katrin Sass are exemplary and the film boasts an effective musical score.
A deeply-layered film that repays repeated watching; and far more than a comedy.