my name is mwd

Last week I went to see Good Bye Lenin, and forgot to write it up. It’s a light German comedy, set around the time of the fall of the Berlin wall. The plot revolves around the mother of the main character, Alex, falling into a coma before the wall falls down, and then waking up eight months later. The doctors inform Alex and his sister that their mother can’t suffer any surprises, so they have to pretend to her that the fall of communism didn’t happen. It’s a comedy, but not a belly laugh one, more a drama, as you see how life changes during the fall for the people of East Berlin. It’s good, but no fanastic. Some of the characters were a bit underused (for example, Alex’s girlfriend who seemed to be underused as someone that has to suffer Alex’s strange behaviour whilst he protects his mother). But an enjoyable film, so worth catching on video or tele.

One of the things I really liked was the fact that the film shows East Berlin in such vibrant colour. Living in the west the pictures presented of East Germany before the fall of the wall are all of darkness and oppression, but this is just the image presented to us in the west as part of the “fear the east” mentality. It’s a bit like the Botanic Garden’s through which I used to walk on my way to work - they must have been as vibrant 100 years ago, but you tend to think of things back then being black and white as that’s the only images that we have from the time.