200 words
Goodbye Lenin!
by Marcos Fuentes de Dios (Avanzado 2, 2008-2009)
Although this is not a new film – it was released in 2003 – I have recently discovered it, and I really like it. Probably, it is one of the best movies I have seen in months.
The film is set in East Berlin in 1989, before the fall of the Wall. It tells the story of Alexander Kerner (Daniel Brühl, a Spanish-German actor), son of a dedicated socialist woman in a place where socialism was about to collapse, and how his life gets into trouble when his mother goes into a coma just when the Wall falls down and wakes up 8 moths afterwards in a completely different world. Alex will have to do all kinds of things so that his socialist mother doesn't realize that the socialist world she loved has been replaced by a capitalist kind of society.
This great German film, directed by Wolfgang Becker, has been acclaimed by people and critics, not only for its plot, but also for its photography and soundtrack. Stylistically, the music is very similar to master Yann Tiersen's prior work on Amélie (in fact, one piano composition is on both films) – yet another of Tiersen's masterpiece.
I fully recommend everybody to watch this dramatic comedy.