Written and Directed by: Wolfgang Becker
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The day the Berlin Wall came crashing down was indeed an earth-shattering moment for those who lived through the era when Berlin was divided into two: between the communist East Berlin and the capitalist West. The Communists guarded the border with their lives, and they convinced their citizens that they were indeed better than their greedy capitalist cousins across the border. The Communist Party, with its secret police, the Stasi, dealt severely with those who were not convinced by the propaganda and wanted to get out to the free world.
The film recounts a pivotal moment in 1989, when the Berlin Wall was on the verge of collapse. Many youngsters throng the streets to express their displeasure at the political situation in their country. Amongst the crowd is Alexander Kreiner, a young adult, holding placards and chanting anti-government chants. The irony of it all is that Alexander's mother is a high-ranking member of the communist party. Alexander is arrested, and upon seeing this, his mother, who happened to be passing by that way, suffers a heart attack and collapses.
Alexander's mother, Christine, stays unconscious in the hospital for nearly eight months. During those eight faithful months, many things happened. The Wall collapses, Germany unifies, the border opens, the leader is ousted, and capitalism moves into East Germany. Miraculously, Christine regains consciousness one fine day. Warned by the doctor not to give her too much excitement in her life, and that is precisely what has happened in the country, Alexander decides to recreate a false environment, right down to the minutest detail, to show his mother the exact environment the city was before her collapse. He tries to portray an image of communism still being very vibrant in Berlin. Hilariously, he tries to get his mother's favourite East German brand, which is obviously out of production.
Later, we discover that the mother also harbours a secret about her husband, who allegedly abandoned Alexander, his mother, and his sister to start a new life in West Germany.
The movie ends with the mother succumbing to another attack. Alexander thinks he managed to shield the changes in the country from his mother, but the fact of the matter is that his girlfriend may have laid everything bare to her. Is ignorant bliss or information King?
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
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