Good bye Lenin

The 2003 historical narrative “Good bye Lenin!” relates in many ways with the 2006 historical narrative “The Lives Of Others”. Both films are set during the time when the Berlin Wall still divided East and West Germany, both films narrow their focus to two specific characters in the films and both films mirror each film’s social commentary of change. 2003’s “Good bye Lenin” focuses on young Alex Kerner and his mother after his mother falls into an eight-month-long coma. While she is asleep, the political schism of her country crumbles as the Berlin Wall falls and unites East and West Germany. Because the Germany she had loved so much had changed after her accident, Alex did not tell her that the Wall fell because he knew that a shock of any sort would cause a fatal heart attack, as her doctors had forewarned. A shock of such grandeur as was when the Berlin Wall fell certainly would have meant death to Alex’s mother. Germany had changed and that was something that Alex did not want his mother to endure. He did not want her to know that everything she had ever known had collapsed, but the truth of what had happened and the subsequent changes were ever so real and consequences that resulted were as real. “The Lives Of Others” also told the story of change and how even though the Minister of Culture did not believe that people changed, the denouement of the film showed that people really did because Wiesler switched from loyalty of the Party to loyalty for man by not turning Dreyman in to the authorities.