Touches You

I wanted to but couldn't!

It’s not bad or unwatchable but despite the amplitude of the spectacle, the end result is underwhelming.

what a terribly boring film. I'm sorry but this is absolutely not deserving of best picture and will be forgotten quickly. Entertaining and engaging cinema? No. Nothing performances with flat faces and mistaking silence for subtlety.

The performances in "Good Bye Lenin!" are very good by the entire cast, and this is an interesting angle for a German film about the changes in East Berlin after the fall of the Soviet Union. It's two stories, really, the overall one being about a tight-knit family from East Berlin, especially the devotion of a young man for his mother. The family appeared to be much better off than many others in East Berlin before 1980 – about 10 years before the Berlin Wall came down. We don't see the father, a doctor who supposedly abandoned his family and fled the Iron Curtain. The Mutter, played by Katrin Sass, has a mental breakdown. After she is returned home and recovered, she begins devoting her time to all things Soviet as a loyal citizen of the state. Ten years pass, and the devoted son, Alex (played by Daniel Bruhl) is bored with life. The picture we see is one of a great laxity among the populace. It's October 1989, and the people are restless, the economy is in shambles, and the Soviet leaders no longer have the heavy hands to control the people. Mutter suffers a heart attack, just as she sees Alex being taken away by a couple of East German Police where he had been walking in a throng of protesters. The film isn't billed as a comedy, but it has some comedy in it. After eight months, Mutter comes out of her coma. But she isn't to be startled or she could suffer a relapse and die. She isn't given that much of a chance as is. Alex moves her back to their apartment. They have to restore it with the old furnishings. He tries to make things as they were eight months earlier, because all of the changes that have happened would be sure to shock her. The rest of the film shows the efforts, orchestrated by Alex, to have Mutter still think she's living under the shadow of her bellowed Lenin. But how long can he keep her from finding the truth? The last quarter of the film is the best part. The comedy is very good here, the love of family shines through with the characters, and the truth finally comes out, with Mutter dying happily. The film is rated R for nudity and some of the language.

Having just watched this movie again after a few years, I have confirmed how much I liked it the first time, and discovered underlying sub plots. I have not read every review but have not seen this in the ones I have read. That is that deception, from the state to the people, between the people, (even the ones you love) and in the media is flourishing. The mother withheld letters sent from the absentee father to his children. The children withheld that fact that the country she loved had failed. The state withheld about everything. And the mother's television, her only connection to the outside world, broadcast news concocted by her son. She does not discover the truth until she gets out of bed, ventures into the world, makes her own investigation, and comes to her own conclusions. It reminds me of a passage in "The Lord of the Rings" that goes something like this; "Evil has not changed since yesteryear and it is not one thing for man and another thing for elves and dwarfs. But it is up to us to discern it in the Golden Wood or in our own homes." Considering the amount of misinformation we are fed from the network owners, government, industry, it is an important lesson. And with the advent of Photoshop, the internet, truth has become much more elusive. We cannot believe what we see, hear or read. This leaves us our sense of smell as the only sense capable of determining the smell of untruth.

Well, I must say I had no idea that life behind the wall during East Germany's existence was so restrictive. No Western companies allowed, (Coca Cola, etc) rubbish TV, mandatory conformation and if you tried to escape this hellhole, you were shot on sight. It almost makes North Korea sound appealing. Thank goodness all that is behind us... mind you, to be a complete nation again they had to tolerate David Hasselhoff's attempt at singing, which is almost enough to make you want to rebuild the structure just to keep the damn fool out...Into this situation are thrown a mother and her two teenage children, who she's raised to be devoted to the ethics and beliefs of the East. Her husband has long since fled to the cosseted bosom of the West, leaving her to raise the kids alone. This was just before the wall was about to collapse though, so she's holding onto a failing ideology. Just before the big event however, she suffers from a massive heart attack which puts her in a long coma, forcing her to miss Germany's reunification and subsequent corruption of her children by outside influences(!) When she wakes up months later, her son is informed by her doctor that any shock could kill her, and finding out the world as she knew it has changed would certainly fall into that category. So he is forced to begin an elaborate facade, involving VCRs, old clothes and pickles. Sounds complicated? Well, it is.It's also very moving, funny and poignant as the ever-inventive screenplay keeps throwing up new problems for the ever-industrious son to navigate, and the way he enlists the help of those around him and his utilisation of ancient products scavenged from the skip is a pleasure to behold. The true heart of the film though, is in the relationship between the stricken mother and her offspring, and through their efforts at keeping her breathing which disrupts their everyday lives, you know they truly love her. Even when she reveals the sorry truth about her husband's departure late on, they still forgive her with unconditional love. My favourite part is just before she passes on, she discovers the ruse... but frankly, she doesn't care. Watching the children she loves going to all this trouble to preserve her life is better than any send-off... you can tell by the look in her eyes.Beautiful. 7/10

I obviously recognised the title of this German film from the book 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die, I wondered what the meaning of it was, but either way I was going to watch it and hope for the best. Basically, in East Berlin, Christiane Kerner (Katrin Saß) had two traumatic events affect her life, the first in 1978 was her husband Robert (Burghart Klaußner) running away with another woman, leaving her with her adolescent children Ariane (Maria Simon) and Alexander 'Alex' (Daniel Brühl), and in 1989 Alex marching in protest against the Berlin Wall is arrested and Christiane suffers a heart attack and goes into a coma, the country drastically changes, including the Wall being taken down. Before this incident she was angry for a long time with the husband who disappeared, and the life of her family changes due to their home being infiltrated by the capitalist world, and eight months later when she recovers from the coma her health is still weak. Christiane is told that if she experiences another shock it could mean her suffering another heart attack and perhaps even certain death, so to protect her Alex avoids talking about their new living environment, and he makes sure she is not exposed to anything damaging. Ariane and Alex's Russian immigrant girlfriend and the mother's nurse Lara (Chulpan Khamatova) do not support Alex's idea, and the recreation of East Germany is an extreme measure that go along with, but it is unclear how far they will go to stop Christiane from suffering another attack, but in the end she dies peacefully, and her ashes are scattered in both East and West Germany. Also starring Florian Lukas as Denis Domaschke, Alexander Beyer as Rainer and Michael Gwisdek as Principal Dr. Klapprath. The acting I suppose was fine, and the story of before and after historical events in alright, the fall of the Berlin Wall was obviously a significant event in history, I will be honest I did not find myself laughing at whatever humour was meant to be portrayed, but it was a near interesting enough comedy drama. It was nominated the BAFTA for Best Film not in the English Language, and it was nominated the Golden Globe for Best Foreign Language Film. Okay!