The Pros and Cons of Life in Communist East Germany in...

On the whole, does Goodbye, Lenin paint a positive or negative picture of life in communist East Germany? East Germany, its demise relayed through the mass media of recent history, has in popular consciousness been posited as negative, a corrupt bulwark of the last dying days of Communism in Eastern Europe, barren and silent. The other Germany to its West, its citizens free, was striding confidently ahead into the millennium. Recent cinema has sought to examine re-unification, the Wolfgang Becker film Goodbye Lenin! (2003) a recent example of such an investigation into the past through cinema. In this essay I will look at the film and the narrative techniques it uses, probing whether it portrays the East German nation as positive or†¦show more content†¦Goodbye Lenin! (2003) appropriates the individual as bound to his environment, threaded, through strong cultural codes, to his neighbour. Regardless of the system, communist or capitalist, and though our goals may deviate, we are all pursuing happiness and comfort, the tools used to attain this products of that society. That said , it is immediately legible whereabouts Becker wishes us to view the East German state as wholly negative, and he does this through several key scenes. At the films opening, we learn of the first East German shot into space, surely an apotheosis of what a state can achieve, its grasp extending to the stars. But behind the curtain of this vast achievement we can see how it is brought about through the utter bending of citizens to the states will. Alexs mother Christiane, who we first assume the innocent of the piece, is interrogated by the Stasi for her husband has fled the country. We learn he was unable to live with a state he detested, the ordeal of the interrogation so testing for Christiane it sends her into a coma. Her husband and the children?s father absent, she finds a kinship with the state, now one of its most vociferous supporters. The absence of the father is particularly imbued with purpose. Later, Becker seeks to equate the death of communism with the return of the father for the two are so inextricably connected. Only when the German Democratic Republic (GDR) is laid to rest can this dark chapterShow MoreRelatedOrgani sational Theory230255 Words   |  922 Pagesthe support of the various organizations that provide you with everything from food and clothing to water, fuel, shelter, health care, education, transport and so on. Could you cope, either physically or psychologically? Probably not! Certainly, your life would change drastically. Indeed, many activities in any society usually require people to socially interact in various ways and, to a degree, cooperate and coordinate their efforts with some sense of purpose. This seems to be the case whether we are