Good Bye Lenin! (2003) - ickleReview (HD)

Image source: Filmmuseum Potsdam.

German film with subtitles set in 1989 in East Berlin. Shortly before the Wall comes down, a mother suffers a heart attack and goes into a coma. By the time she wakes up, the Wall has fallen and East and West Germany are being reintegrated. Her grown-up son and daughter undertake a massive ruse to pretend that nothing has changed in case the shock of the news gives the mother another heart attack and kills her.

A touching film with a neat perspective on the fall of the Berlin Wall. Lightly comic without being over-sentimental. Shows the old East Germany with affectionate but not blinkered nostalgia. We are prepared to suspend our sense of the implausibility of maintaining the charade for so long.

Nugget: enjoyable reflection on the differences between life in the old East and West Germany.