Taglines: The German Democratic Republic lives on — in 79 square meters!
East Germany, the year 1989: A young man protests against the regime. His mother watches the police arresting him and suffers a heart attack and falls into a coma. Some months later, the GDR does not exist anymore and the mother awakes. Since she has to avoid every excitement, the son tries to set up the GDR again for her in their flat. But the world has changed a lot.
Good Bye, Lenin! is a German tragicomedy film. Directed by Wolfgang Becker, the cast includes Daniel Brühl, Katrin Saß, Chulpan Khamatova, and Maria Simon. Most scenes were shot at the Karl-Marx-Allee in Berlin and around Plattenbauten near Alexanderplatz.
The film score is composed by Yann Tiersen, except the version of “Summer 78” which is sung by Claire Pichet. Stylistically, the music is very similar to Tiersen’s prior work on the soundtrack to Amélie (in fact one piano composition, Comptine d’un Autre Eté: L’Apres Midi, is in both films), but is missing Amélie’s trademark accordion waltzes.
In a prologue, Alex Kerner (Nico Ledermüller) recalls as a child in 1978 how proud he was along with his countrymen when the first German to enter space, Sigmund Jähn, came from East Germany (the GDR).
The remainder of the film is set in East Berlin, spanning from October 1989 to just after German reunification a year later. Alex (Daniel Brühl) lives with his sister, Ariane (Maria Simon), his mother, Christiane (Katrin Saß), and Ariane’s infant daughter, Paula. His father fled to the West in 1978, apparently abandoning the family. In his absence, Christiane has become an ardent idealist and supporter of the ruling Socialist Unity Party of Germany (the Party).
Alex takes part in an anti-government demonstration, where he meets a girl by chance, but they are separated by the Volkspolizei before they could properly introduce themselves. When Christiane sees Alex being arrested, she suffers a near-fatal heart attack and falls into a coma. The police ignore Alexander’s plea to assist his mother, instead releasing him later that evening to go and see her.
While visiting his mother at the hospital, Alex again meets the girl from the demonstration, who is revealed to be Lara (Chulpan Khamatova), a young nurse from the Soviet Union taking care of his mother. Alex becomes smitten with her and asks her out. The two soon begin dating and develop a close bond.
Shortly afterward, the Berlin Wall falls. In that time, Erich Honecker resigns from office, the East German police and military become increasingly toothless, and capitalism comes to East Berlin. Alex loses his job as a TV repairman due to the decommissioning of the labor agency, but gets hired by a West German cable company. The company has a “lottery” to pair those from East and West Germany, and Alex is paired with West Berlin resident Denis Domaschke (Florian Lukas), an aspiring filmmaker with whom Alex quickly becomes good friends, while Ariane leaves university to work at a Burger King drive-through.
After eight months, Christiane awakes, but is severely weakened both physically and mentally. Her doctor asserts that any shock might cause another, possibly fatal, heart attack. Alex realises that the discovery of recent events would be too much for her to hear, and so sets out to maintain the illusion that things are as before in the German Democratic Republic.
Directed by: Wolfgang Becker
Starring: Daniel Brühl, Katrin Saß, Chulpan Khamatova, Maria Simon, Alexander Beyer, Florian Lukas, Christine Schorn
Screenplay by: Wolfgang Becker, Bernd Lichtenberg
Production Design by: Lothar Holler
Cinematography by: Martin Kukula
Film Editing by: Peter R. Adam
Costume Design by: Aenne Plaumann
Art Direction by: Matthias Klemme
Music by: Yann Tiersen
MPAA Rating: R for brief language and sexuality.
Studio: Sony Pictures Classics
Release Date: February 17, 2003
