Good bye Lenin

The 2003 historical narrative "Good bye Lenin" is a piece of historical and comedic brilliance that focuses on a relationship between a young man, Alex Kerner and his mother. After falling into a coma for eight months, Alex mother lies in bed numb to the world as the political schism of East and West Germany crumbles as the Berlin Wall falls. The divided Germany Alex's mother had known and loved dearly had disappeared and Alex wanted to preserve the memories of the former Germany for his mother, so he never tells her that the Wall has fallen. There were both sobering moments and light-hearted moments that contributed to the mood of this film. The Spreewald pickles that Alex's mother asks him to buy at the grocery store represents familiarity and hope. The hope lies in the fact that if he finds the Spreewald pickles, he will be giving his mother back her reality and the world she had known. As it is touching how Alex tries to preserve his mother's pre-accident world, it is saddening to know how she had lied to him so long about his father and why he fled to the West. Lying to him proved to be to his detriment. The mood of the film to me is very frustrating because the mother had lied to her son, but it was admirable how he went to great lengths to preserve the world and life his mother had always known. The interplay of history and fiction is tightly interwoven because this fictional film does a wonderful job of recounting historical events accurately. However, it becomes very frustrating to watch as he is trying to preserve a fictional history. I feel like Alex has a great deal in common with the Minister of Culture because they both fail to realize that change happens. It exists. The Minister of Culture does not accept the fact that people change and the denouement of the film proves that they do. Things also change and that is so difficult to accept for Alex because he desperately tries to salvage the memory of East Germany for his mother because it was what she had loved and always known.