Saturday, October 3, 2015

October 3 - Goodbye Lenin!

Today’s movie is a tragicomedy with a scene that happens on October 3. Watch this film tonight and enjoy.

GOODBYE, LENIN!        

 In 1978 while Sigmund Jahn was becoming the first German in space, the father of Alex and Ariane Kerner flees to the West, deserting his family.  His wife Christine goes into depression and comes out of it by  becoming deeply involved in civic affairs. In October, 1989 Alex gets caught up in an anti-government demonstration. Seeing Alex arrested causes his mother to have a heart attack and she goes into a coma.  Christine is in a coma through the collapse of East German and the dismantling of the Berlin Wall. Ariane gets married and has a daughter. Alex starts dating on of his Mom’s nurses, Lara and works selling satellite TV.   Then his mom wakes up and her doctors advise that Christine must avoid any shocks, so Alex sets out to convince his mom she is still living in East Germany. He restores the old décor in their apartment, puts her food in old containers and creates fake newscasts that broadcast from a hidden VCR. Christine is fooled for a long time, even though Alex has to become more creative over time to explain away some odd happenings to his mother as Westerners moving to East Germany after an economic collapse. They go their country  dacha, where Christine reveals that she was supposed to follow her husband to the West, but became afraid and stayed behind, a decision she now regrets. His mother has a relapse and Alex goes to visit his father in the West and convinces him to visit his mother. That day Lara told Christine the truth. Alex persuades a Sigmund Jahn look a like to create a final fake broadcast explaining why the borders have been opened. Alex shows this to his mother on the day before German Reunification Day and she pretends to be surprised. As the tape ends it becomes October 3, 1990 [1:54:32 – 1:55:33] and Alex and Lara view the fireworks  celebrating the event. His mother dies a few days later and Alex uses a rocket to scatter her ashes.  

Producer - Stefan Arndt


Director - Wolfgang Becker


Screenwriters - Wolfgang Becker and Bernd Lichtenberg


Runtime – 2 hours 1 minutes


Released – February 13, 2003


Starring -


Daniel Brühl as Alexander "Alex" Kerner  
Nico Ledermüller as 11-year-old Alex
Katrin Saß as Christiane Kerner
Chulpan Khamatova as Lara
Maria Simon as Ariane Kerner
Florian Lukas as Denis Domaschke
Alexander Beyer as Rainer
Burghart Klaußner as Robert Kerner
Christine Schorn as Frau Schäfer

Copyright by Ivan Walters in 2015.


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