Thersites Writes

I saw Good Bye Lenin yesterday and felt driven to write about it. But whereas other reviews have dwelt on the comedy, the 'Ostalgie' for the long-gone DPR of Germany and the sterling performances by the cast, I couldn't help but notice the film's darker undertones. This is at heart a Shakespearean Tragedy and a film about madness and the decay of truth.

After all, the film’s main protagonist, Alex Kerner, perhaps only exceeded by the situation he finds himself in, is the villain of the piece. He manipulates, lies, bullies and deceives non-stop: in effect he becomes like the Stasi officer who socks him in the stomach: trying to win loyalty through menaces, and using his authority to a bad end, or the East German state itself, mollycoddling and oppressive in equal measure. And far from being funny, his scavenging for old junk, self-pitying rants about the changing world he lives in and the outright delusion he creates for himself at the end of the film suggests a very lonely and warped figure, as much in it for himself and his insecurities as to protect his mother, Christiane.

Perhaps he sums it up while arguing with his sister Ariane, condemning her as a cynic - a self-revealing irony from someone who is already too bitter, skewed, obsessive and in denial to accept the world he lives in and his place in it. He has more in common with the griping old folk he conspires with to keep up his mother's fantasy than anyone his own age, including his girlfriend Lara. At another point he attacks his sister for wanting to turn their mother's life support off at once point, but again this just highlights the unliving, unreal living death he condemns her to instead.

Far from being the 'hero', he has become the State he once mocked, up to the point of stopping his sister's family moving out, and so keeping them in a dysfunctional society as surely as the Berlin Wall did. Throughout the film, his focus on his mother eclipses that on his baby niece Paula: as with the old East Germany, the young are marginalised in the name of supporting the old order.

In different circumstances, Alex would have easily done terrible things in the name of Socialism, and what sort of monster might he have become under the Third Reich? As his mother says, Alex is as 'stubborn as a mule', and this trait grows and develops to quite abnormal proportions. Such an implication casts a long shadow over the film: in many ways it's a study of tyranny as much as it is a black comedy.

So is Alex's mother and his sister just as bad? Not really - if anything, they are motivated by a sort of practical need to carry on with life rather than Alex's pathetic attempts to put it into an 'Ostalgic' deep freeze. Mother's lies about how and why her husband left and why she didn't follow, her fervent socialism and her own deception of Alex at the film's conclusion comes from a woman who finds herself in tough times and who tries her best to stay afloat and support her family.

Arianne, Alex's more materialistic sister, is slagged off and bullied by him, yet her own brutal pragmatism, scepticism (quite separate from Alex's cynicism) and self-interest is rooted in part through growing up in a decaying society and in part from having a family of her own - which Mummy's Boy Alex doesn't. Nor is she unprincipled - her love for her mother is what keeps her in Alex's control, and her own understandable anger makes her turn and walk the other way when she finally meets her father. While one is capitalist and the other socialist, Mother and Daughter are alike in the sense that they are the matriarchs of their families and so make the sort of hard choices they feel necessary.

Alex has the luxury of hurling tantrums and glaring menacingly to get his own way, but is incapable of the selfless sacrifices Ariane and Christiane make as they try to keep their broods together, flaws or no flaws. While you might not agree with their views, they both show their maturity through making these hard choices. Whereas Alex, with his increasingly unhealthy obsession with looking after his mother, keeping her in the dark and dwelling on a past that never was seems pathetically infantile. The boy Alex who surprises and delights his mother with a rocket costume at the start of the film seems far more mature, compassionate and sane than the man he comes to be, and that is yet another of the film's biggest tragedies.

What about Alex's Father? Again, like his daughter and ex-wife, he seems to be a person caught up in the tide of events whose choices you might not agree with, but which were made with the best intentions: unlike his son, he tries to move on. On that count, he doesn't deserve being used as little better than another player in Alex's scheme, nor the angry snub he gets from Arianne. (Although, she didn’t quite deserve to lose her father at such a young age either - events beyond their control have split father and daughter irrevocably.)

Likewise, Alex's friend, the hyperactive Wessie wannabe film director, Denis, doesn't seem so bad. While he plays a willing part in Alex's subterfuge, this is out of a sort of cheerful, manic enthusiasm that blinds him to the real nature of what he is doing. In that way, he is as unhinged as his friend, but more through being too keen and immature than too driven and oppressive. Plus, his actions are influenced by Alex's own scheming nature - he exploits his friend's desire to be a film director by yet more manipulation. Again, Alex is exposed as an Eastern Bloc monster that no longer quite fits in.

But if the film only really has two true villains - the malign influence of the DPR and Alex himself - it also has two heroes. The most surprising of these is Rainer, Ariane's West German boyfriend. When we first meet him, he seems to be a materialistic dolt and his own rant about 'Ossies' doesn't endear him much to the audience. Yet as the film develops, we begin to see a man who is devoted to his partner, his stepdaughter and his unborn child and it is this that keeps him involved in Alex's scheme. It is a sad irony that this helps, rather than hinders, Alex's plans as it ensures Rainer's involvement as long as Alex can strong-arm Ariane. Rainer the Wessie ends like many a decent Ossie who had to submit for the sake of his family: a subtle sort of self-sacrifice that Alex is oblivious to. (As an aside, Rainer is played by Alexander Beyer - himself born and raised in the DPR.)

The more obvious hero, of course, is Alex's girlfriend and Nurse, Lara. She goes along with Alex, but makes it clear that there are limits to what he can and can't do: if anything, her own principles stop Alex's total descent into madness, and she is the only character who can successfully stand up to him. Perhaps this is because she actually is willing to put herself on the line - be it on a protest march or interrupting an overly verbose doctor (who, like Alex does with his sister, stares her down into submission). She also puts Alex in his place and, finally, reveals the truth to his mother, even when she doesn't want to hear it. (And presumably telling Christiane to keep Alex in the dark too, suggesting he is now as vulnerable to the truth as his mother was once assumed to be.)

This alone makes her virtuous, but she is heroic too in that she values the truth and loves Alex nonetheless. Or rather, she loves the part of him that is still good, kind and loyal, even as it is increasingly submerged by his worst traits, and through this she never gives up on him, even when everyone else (including the audience) might want to. To sum up, she doesn't submit, either to a non-ideal world, an increasingly unstable situation or the urge to just leave what was once and who could still be a loving, decent man.

But the ultimately tragedy of the film is what may happen after its end. Alex's purpose, and the source of his power, was the care of his ailing mother. With that gone, and another child on the way, it seems unlikely Ariane would tolerate him any longer.

Nor does he seem capable of staying friends with Denis: their project in keeping Christiane deluded was the main bond between them, but the cheerful and enthusiastic Denis doesn't seem to have much in common with the damaged, dysfunctional man his friend becomes, and so their future friendship seems uncertain.

And Alex, having made and wallowed in his own artificial DPR, is hardly equipped mentally to deal either with the new Germany or the remnants of the old. Even his peace of mind depends on a (necessary) lie: without it, he may no longer be able to function.

Again, Lara may prove to be his salvation, but only if he can survive yet another lie falling apart and can heal the wounds he himself has inflicted. But as the film ends as it begun with a misinformed, self-serving narrative from Alex himself, once can't help feeling that these are really the thoughts of an old bitter man, alone and rootless, and left behind by a world he had rejected.