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Cytat
Do celu tam się wysiada. Lec Stanisław Jerzy (pierw. de Tusch-Letz, 1909-1966)
A bogowie grają w kości i nie pytają wcale czy chcesz przyłączyć się do gry (. . . ) Bogowie kpią sobie z twojego poukładanego życia (. . . ) nie przejmują się zbytnio ani naszymi planami na przyszłość ani oczekiwaniami. Gdzieś we wszechświecie rzucają kości i przypadkiem wypada twoja kolej. I odtąd zwyciężyć lub przegrać - to tylko kwestia szczęścia. Borys Pasternak
Idąc po kurzych jajach nie podskakuj. Przysłowie szkockie
I Herkules nie poradzi przeciwko wielu.
Dialog półinteligentów równa się monologowi ćwierćinteligenta. Stanisław Jerzy Lec (pierw. de Tusch - Letz, 1909-1966)
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.In this context it is worth mentioning Svetlana Boym s categorisa-tion of nostalgia into types: the restorative and the reflective, whichproved a useful tool to analyse postcommunist cinema (Boym 2001;on its application to German films see Bechmann-Pedersen 2009).Thefirst tries to restore the lost home as an idealised essence and not as animage in flux created in the present.This form is unaware (or refrainsfrom admitting) that it is nostalgic, but considers itself truth seeking.The second type of nostalgia, the reflective, knows that it is being nos-talgic; it is thus imbued with irony.It expresses the longing simultane-ously with a realisation of the impossible redemption of the longing.The reflective nostalgia stresses the longing for a past time, algia, whichsituates it firmly in a present, whereas the restorative nostalgia has thephantom-home, nostos, as its core.The reflective nostalgia dynamicallyrelates a present, from which the nostalgia reaches out, to the past.Ofcourse, these types, which can be mapped into the divisions between reconstructionist and deconstructionist history (see Introduction),are ideal models; in reality they can exist at the same time.My argu-ment is that Good Bye Lenin! is open to both types of nostalgic reading:the restorative and the reflective.A restorative nostalgic reading dominated the interpretations of Becker sfilm, especially in the popular press.In some reviews Good Bye Lenin!was even heralded as an epitome of Ostalgie: nostalgia for the (comunu-nist) East, a sentiment experienced not only by those from the East, butfrom the West as well.A clear sign was its spanning a merchandisingbusiness.In Berlin for a250 one can rent Germany s most famous living 190 European Cinema and Intertextualityroom the prefabricated apartment where the Kerner family lives in thefilm.The location has been billed as the perfect place for an Ostalgieparty by a local tabloid.Renting the uniform of an East German policeofficer costs a55 a week.One can also bid for an original Goodbye Lenincoffee set on eBay, buy Goodbye Lenin T-shirts or mugs or discuss thefilm with others in a special online forum.Certain movie-theatre hallshave even been asking viewers to bring along their East German sou-venirs.A theatre in the dreary eastern Berlin suburb of Hellersdorf nowdisplays old East German newspapers, confirmation certificates andfaded East German scout T-shirts.In the first week that the film openedvisitors could also pay for their tickets in the now defunct East GermanDeutschmarks ( Goodbye, Lenin, Hello Humor! 2003).I have no inten-tion of questioning the ostalgic reading of the film, but in commonwith authors such as Paul Cooke, Elizabeth Boa and Seán Allan, I arguethat Good Bye Lenin! offers a more ambiguous approach to the EastGerman past (Cooke 2005; Boa 2006; Allan 2006).Becker s film acts as a perfect metonym; what happens to its charac-ters reflects the fate of German society at large.Each character is bothrepresentative of a larger group and unique.At the centre is a typicalEast German family, consisting of a single mother, Christiane, who usedto work as a teacher, and two adult children, the previously mentionedAlex and his sister Ariane, a student and also a single mother.The doc-tor father fled to West Berlin, which encapsulates the typical featureof the GDR and Berlin itself as a divided city.It is also symbolic of thehybrid/postcolonial identity of people like Alex post-1989: with an EastGerman mother and West German father, his heart might still be in theEast, but he has to accept the power of the Western patriarchal order.The typicality of the family is also underscored by the name of the pro-tagonist, Alex, which is a popular shortened name of the most importantBerlin square where the protesters gathered in 1989.As Elizabeth Boanotes, it signals the protagonist s rebellion against communist Germany(Boa 2006: 78 9).It also points to the connection of Alex Kerner s lifewith the history of the GDR, because the square, due to being destroyedduring the war, was used as a showcase of socialist architecture, includ-ing a huge television tower. Alex also bears association with BerlinAlexanderplatz, the famous novel by Alfred Döblin (1929), and its adap-tation by Rainer Werner Fassbinder (1980) about working-class peopleliving in Berlin between the world wars.True to his name, Alex acts asa bridge between different layers of German history.At the start of the film Alex tells of his father s defection to the West.During this part of the film we get an insight into the GDR as a Stasi The End of Communism 191state , which was the dominant narrative of East Germany in the firstdecade after unification (Cooke 2005).We learn that the father had adifficult life because he was not in the Communist Party (SozialistischeEinheitspartei Deutschlands, SED) and his disappearance had a dev-astating effect on the remaining members of the family.The motherwas interrogated by the secret services and, following this experience,she withdrew from life, behaving as if she was catatonic.The childrenwere left to be cared for by strangers.It was Alex s persistent asking hismother not to abandon them which prevented her from committingsuicide and eventually brought her back to sanity and reunited her withher children.Or, at least, she returned to sanity Soviet style, as afterreturning home from the psychiatric hospital she became an ardentcommunist, throwing herself into work to improve the daily lives offellow citizens, organising camps for pioneers and writing petitions tothe factories producing substandard goods.As a number of authorsobserve, in her desire to educate and take care of the lives of fellowcitizens she epitomises Muttirepublik (a nanny state).In the communistcontext, such an approach could easily be criticised, as disempower-ing and infantilising those subjected to it.However, as Elizabeth Boaobserves, in the new capitalist world, where nanny states are fast disap-pearing, her actions arouse more positive attitudes (Boa 2006: 78 80).Becker does not disclose whether Christiane s actions were the resultof brainwashing she suffered in the psychiatric ward, the effect of a gen-uine change of heart or a cover for her true beliefs which remained anti-communist.This ambiguity can be seen as pertaining to the behaviourof millions of people like Christiane across the whole Soviet bloc, whosemotives to support (or oppose) the communist regime were complex andmight have evolved with the passage of time (on the situation in EastGermany see Fulbrook 1995: 57 86)
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