GoodbyeLenin directed by Wolfgang Becker who is a German director in 2003. The movieis mainly based on a family who lived in East Germany but the father of theirfamily betrayed them and moved to the West Germany. As the single mother ofthis family, she put all her energy back to her country, her party and herchildren. However, in 1989 autumn the mother suddenly got a heart attachbecause she saw her child is in a parade which is going against the governmentand party. She fell into a coma for about 8 months, when she could open hereyes Germany turned into a totally different new face. One of her child whonamed Alex decided to take her mother out of the hospital, but the doctor toldhim that her mother could not suffer any stimulation if so she will go backinto coma again. As a result, Alex planed to tell her mother a life thateverything has not been changed at all. He redecorated his dormitory, kept oldfood packages also held a birthday party for her mother and he even created afake news channel in order to satisfy mother’s wish to watching TV. The movieended after her mother’s funeral, she knew the truth in the end but she did nottell her son.
According to theinformation from IMDb, the genera of this film is a comedy. However, afterwatching this film, I could not get any mood of happiness or funny things fromthis movie. Indeed, it has some fragments which is funny such as Alex and hisfriend is doing a fake interview in front of a Coco Cola company. Although theydid not finish the recording in the end, they used some editing technique tomake the interview video seemed real at last. In this scene, the atmosphere of thefilm is happy and positive. While in the last part of the film when Alex washolding the funeral for his mother, he used a rocket to carry his mother’sashes, he sent it into the sky like what he did in his childhood. In thisscene, the exact mood of the film is entire the opposite of the mood in thebeginning of the film when Alex was trying to tell the lie to his mother thatDemocratic Germany still exists. The change of mood seems to run through thewhole movie, well in this blog, I am going to analyze one shot from this moviewhich has become the foreshadowing of the emotional change of the whole film.
This shot occurs atthe very beginning of the film, when Alex found her mother woke up but the countryhad totally been changed, Alex and his sister was talking with her mother’sdoctor. Hillman (2006) pointed out that this film is not the surrender ofpostmodernism to history. This shot happened in the turning point of the Germanhistory, also this shot can be defined as the turning point of the whole movie,after this shot the movie started to describe the main part of the story whichis Alex tried his best to create a fake East Germany in his mother’s room. Inthe beginning of this shot, the doctor speaks to the Alex and sister in a veryfast speed. It is a shoulder to shoulder shot, the doctor tilted his head andtold them seriously about his mother's illness. It is worth noting that at thistime the design of the mug on the table presents a crying face, which seems toimply that the situation of mother’s illness was really not optimistic.However, when the doctor’s statement was finished, the screen turned to focuson Alex and his sister, they seemed to be in the joy of their mother's sudden awakening.In the meantime, I also notice that the design of the mug flip around. It is ahappy smiling face, which means that Alex is in a happy mood at this time.After the nurse said something, the camera moved back to focus on doctor’sface. When the doctor was speaking it is significant that this shoulder toshoulder shot always flip around for a lot of times. Which stands for the moviewill change its mood frequently in the following part of the movie. The soundchange in this shot is also tricky, we can easily hear a back-ground musicslightly came up in the movie when Alex got the information that his mothercould not get any stimulate during the following time. With this music, we canguess that at that time in Alex’s mind he did not fell well after hearing thiskind of information. And in the meantime, he might also have a miniature of hisplan to tell the lie to his mother.
For overall speaking,Goodbye Lenin is a great film who has discussed some serious social problem andfamily relationships. Every shot in this film can be detailed analyzed, due tothe limitation of the length of this blog, I can only analyze only one shot.
Thanks for reading myblog.
Reference
Hillman, R. (2006)Goodbye Lenin (2003): History in the SubjunctiveRethinking HistoryVol. 10, No. 2, June 2006, pp. 221 – 237