After witnessing her son get arrested at a pro-democracy rally in East Germany, single mother Christiane has a near-fatal heart attack that puts her in a coma for the forseeable future. As she sleeps, her children witness the fall of the Berlin Wall and the gradual Westernization of the German Democratic Republic, leading to a conflict when Christiane, a loyal communist, awakens. Afraid that the shock of the new order will lead to another heart attack, her son Alex and her daughter Paula try to conceal the truth to protect her.

I really enjoyed this film! As the introductory film for the Eastern European cinema unit, this was a great way to start looking at the genre. One of the most common complaints about representations of Eastern Europe is that its negative stereotypes create an incentive to Westernize the country, without taking into account the beautiful traditions that arose out of the decades of Soviet control. When Christiane awakens, Alex is determined to keep his mother safe and healthy by changing their apartment into a recreation of what it was like before the fall of the USSR. However, as a result of this project, Alex starts to see his mission as a way to pay homage to a previous life that is dying out. As Christiane dies, the memories of East Germany start to die too.

The scene in the library where former astronaut Sigmund Jähn gives a “eulogy” to a fake newsreel of East Germany deciding to reintegrate with West Germany was both sweet and heartbreaking. On the one hand, it was hilarious to see the other people in the library look bewildered at the filming of the fake newscast. But on the other, it was a bit sad to see that they apparently had all moved on too quickly to the Western tradition, in turn abandoning the customs of East Germany. It’s understandable why they would, but the film goes to great lengths to show why East Germany was a truly unique invention. Although Soviet control was intense and authoritarian, the montages of the Kerner family’s happier days under the Soviet union was quite sweet, and showed that even though life politically was scarce, there was a sense of community that was being lost. In Jacob Mikanowski’s article “Goodbye, Eastern Europe,” he captures this mentality perfectly. Although the USSR was a brutal regime, the gentrification of Eastern Europe is a sad thing to see, mostly because of how wonderfully diverse the region was and is. Nowadays, all we have is literature that bases Eastern European characters on outdated stereotypes. What I love about Good Bye, Lenin! Is that it uses its comedic lens to shine light on the tragedy of losing Eastern Europe to Western sensibilities. As we’ve seen in films like Prisoner of the Mountains, Eastern Europe is way more than its stereotypes; it has its own diverse population that deserves better representation.