The protagonist Alex lives with his family in East Berlin, the capital of East Germany. His mother Christiane, in reaction to her husband Robert taking refuge in West Germany by himself, has become an ardent supporter of socialism. On October 7, 1989—the 40th anniversary of the founding of East Germany—Christiane suffers from a heart attack and falls into a coma. It seems like she will never wake up again, but she miraculously wakes up in the hospital eight months later. However, by this time, the Berlin Wall had already collapsed, the socialist system had disappeared from East Germany, and it was a matter of time until the East and West were unified. Alex looks after his mother when she returns home; since the doctor says that, “she might not live if she suffers from another great shock,” Alex works desperately to continue acting as if East Germany’s socialist system is unchanged by involving everyone around. During this time, the mother confesses that Alex’s biological father did not cast them away to seek refuge, but that Christiane broke her promise to follow Robert, who escaped to the West side while she stayed in East Berlin; she also confesses that she did not show Alex and his older sister the letters their father had sent them. Christiane lives for three years after the fall of the Berlin Wall. Although Alex thinks he was able to hide the truth from his mother well, the movie ends with Christiane possibly knowing the truth.
Good Bye Lenin! is a comedy with underlying satire and wit. The people who lived in East Berlin before the collapse of the Berlin Wall longed for freedom to the degree of, “I’d give my life for it.” After the collapse of the wall, they witnessed economic chaos, unemployment, social chaos, and the loss of the things that they took pride in before, and they realized the bitter truth that free society was not as rosy as they imagined. However, the undercurrent theme flowing through this movie is about how someone reacts when they realize that what they believed to be true is wrong. This movie does not show regret or blame anyone. The general citizen will believe in and live with the propaganda given by a socialist system, but when society suddenly changes, they try hard to adapt. This movie depicts with light humor how Alex and the people around him deal with the change, but also depicts a desire for his mother to die peacefully believing in old values. One reason this movie was a big hit in Germany may be the social background that, despite the sudden change in values and the chaos that came with it, Germany succeeded in unification and accomplished stability. It was painful then, but 20 years later, it has been long enough for Germans today to look back on the chaos with humor.
I admit that the use of satire and laughter to depict the sudden change in the system is a worthy approach, but unfortunately only the first half of this movie can be enjoyed without distraction; in the second half of this long movie, the story becomes boring by repeatedly trying the same thing over and over. The great efforts of Alex’s goodwill become misdirected, and his girlfriend urges, “How long will you keep this up? Honestly tell your mother the truth,” while his older sister angrily fusses that, “Continuing this lifestyle is full of stress.” As I watch Alex struggle all day long despite everything for this lie, the movie gradually loses its humor. Moreover, it becomes unclear what the director is targeting with the satire. Does he wish to express a bitter sentiment about the Cold War ending? Or in the worst case, some may think the message is, “Aw, socialism was better. East Germany was a great country, even winning as many gold medals in the Olympics as America and USSR.”
However, we should not forget that, behind the Olympic glory of East Germany, there was systematic use of drugs by the nation. Furthermore, drugs were given to athletes without their consent. A prime example is East Germany’s shot putter Heidi Krieger. The steroid hormones that she was repeatedly given without her knowledge damaged her health and forced her to retire from competition; Krieger now lives as a man by the name of Andreas Krieger after a sex-change surgery. In a 2004 interview for the New York Times, he expressed the sentiment, “I’m happy that I can live as a man in today’s society, but I am very angry that I got into this situation because I was given drugs by the government without my consent.”
I admit that sophisticated technique is required to keep the intention of the satire clear when making a comedy, but I still would have liked to see the older sister and girlfriend actually have an effect on Alex’s behavior rather than be ignored. I would guess that there are many in the audience who become fed up with Alex’s behavior by the end. This feeling stops the laughter.