Good Bye, Lenin!

The fall of communism in Eastern Europe is the object of gentle satire tinged with melancholy in this funny, touching film from writer-director Wolfgang Becker. An East German woman, totally committed to the socialist ideal, suffers a major heart attack and lapses into a coma just as the Soviet-style regime is crumbling. By the time she finally awakes, East Germany has been transformed, but her devoted son--told that any shock might bring on a fatal relapse--decides to create the impression that the old German Democratic Republic (GDR) is not only still alive but thriving, a hard-to-maintain illusion that forms the comic heart of Good Bye, Lenin! Still, even though the film makes it clear that the fallen communist regime was a Potemkin Village no less phony than the one the boy fashions for his mother's sake, it never denigrates the principles that the GDR claimed, however falsely, to represent, nor does it ridicule the honest dedication of its working class adherents (there's no sense of smug capitalist triumphalism here). Rather, on the broadest level, Good Bye, Lenin! suggests that blind support for any political system is self-deluding, and that's a lesson everyone, everywhere can take to heart. Highly recommended. [Note: DVD extras include subtitled audio commentaries (one by co-writer/director Wolfgang Becker; the other by cast members, including Alexander Beyer), 10 deleted scenes with optional commentary and onscreen intros (a whopping 44 min.), the visual effects featurette “Lenin Learns to Fly” (20 min.), eight-minutes of uncut broadcasts of the German news program Aktuelle Kamera (Current Camera), a brief “mini” making-of montage, and trailers. Bottom line: a fine extras package for a fine film.] (F. Swietek)