Tracie Thompson: Assignment 2
Film Research
The film is narrated by Alex, and the audience experiences life in the GDR through his tongue-in-cheek observations. The film incorporates "home videos" of Alex's childhood growing up in the GDR.
The subdued color tones used in the beginning of the film reflect the austere, socialist life-style, punctuated by bright red government signage.
The beginning of the film also reflects life in the GDR before the fall of the Berlin wall. Nostalgia and social memory play a large role in how Alex feels about his former life after the wall comes down and Capitalism is introduced.
A pivotal point during the film, and subsequent scenes following, are shot at night.
Much of the plot of the film involves Alex shielding his ill mother from current events.
While life in Germany changes around them, their intimate world still reflects life in the GDR.
As Capitalism invades the former GDR, it also invades Alex's life through his sister and her life choices. American companies, products, and advertisements begin to signal the shift from a socialist to capitalist society. The world becomes more colorful and harder for Alex to hide from his mother.
When Alex's mother learns the truth she comes face to face with Lenin leaving Berlin.
Official movie poster.
Essay
Good bye, Lenin! (2003)
By Wolfgang Becker
Good bye, Lenin! is a film set in the late 1980’s both before and after the fall of the Berlin Wall and the re-unification of West and East Germany. The film explores this historic event through the narrative of the main character, Alex, and it is his tongue-in-cheek re-telling of history as he lived it as a citizen of socialist East Berlin that gives the film its dark comedic undertones. At the beginning of the film, viewers are introduced to Alex and his childhood through home videos – a hazy, scratchy, film version of “actual” events in his life, including memories of his father. This aesthetic returns throughout the duration of the film, usually foreshadowing a return for Alex to places of importance in his childhood. Viewers also see flashbacks to events, typically traumatic in nature, such as Alex’s father leaving or the Stasi imposing their presence in Alex’s home and aggressively interrogating his mother.
Other themes throughout the film are space travel and the transformation of East Berlin during the unification period. The aesthetic at the beginning of the film reflects the austere and rather bland color palette of life under soviet rule before the introduction of capitalism: subdued colors in East Berlin are often only punctuated by the bright red color used by the government. During the transition, Alex’s life becomes chaotic and frenzied, which also reflects the turbulence of soviet life interrupted by the introduction to television and the commercial products of the West. Towards the end of the film the colors become brighter with regards to the outside world, however, Alex’s home setting remains subdued due to the fact that he is trying to keep his ill mother from learning about the unification of Germany and the introduction of capitalism in order to protect her and keep her healthy. The film utilizes a unique perspective narrative to re-tell a historic event, while also utilizing the main character’s nostalgic bias toward life in soviet East Berlin. The transitional use of color throughout the film acts as a guide to the status of East Berlin outside of Alex’s home.
Words to Idea + Thesis Statement
Five Words: Narrative, space, deception, history, nostalgia
The film utilizes a unique perspective narrative to re-tell a historic event, while also utilizing the main character’s nostalgic bias toward life in soviet East Berlin. The transitional use of color throughout the film acts as a guide to the status of East Berlin outside of Alex’s home.
Visual Research (Inspiration Board/Collection)
Exploration/Formulation (Style Board/Examples/Studies)
Story Board
