Goodbye Lenin! (2003)

“Goodbye Lenin!” is not an easy movie to write about. In overall it comprises the usual looks and technicality involved in most european  independent films, such as “Julietta” (2001). Nothing much about it. The story evolves as Alexander´s (played by Daniel Bruhl) mother, a hardcore communism supporter, develops a heart attack followed by a deep coma condition just before the fall of the Berlin wall. They are eastern berlinians and when she recovers the country is already reunited again.

The plot then comes to a point where the doctor tells the young sibling his mother can afford no big emotions at all, or else she will most probably suffer a second, and fatal, seizure. Alexander, then, begins to reenact inside her mother´s tiny bedroom the entire leftist regime, so as to prevent her from learning her more than esteemed way of life was completely obliterated. This effort involves finding discarted pickle jars, from the old regime, to be filled with imported norwegian cucumbers, refitting her bedroom with its old furniture, and even recording fake news programs resembling former state television.

 

Truth emerges looking over the shoulder 

This provides an enjoyable comic element to the movie, and, most importantly, it allows the audience to take notice how the old form of living was, in comparison to the new democratic one. Thus, forgivable is the eventual viewer´s misperception on thinking the main purpose of the movie on depicting communism is confined on these many material efforts Alexander is pulling together. “Goodbye Lenin!” goes beyond that. A strong argument discreetly reveals itself within another cognitional layer which holds an intelligent metaphor about communism. The main character unveils itself as a skilled deceiver, capable of luring even his most loved one on behalf of a final good that, in the end, is acknowledged to be non existent. Indeed, near the end of the movie the audience (and Alexander himself) learns that the mother had a great yearning for quitting the regime and start a living on West Germany. Even so, although knowing his schemes were somehow pointless, the sibling insists on a new transitional deception scheme in order to finally present his mother with the actual current state of a single Germany. Only that by this time his own parent, the very object of the deceit, already knew all that was going on, even the boy´s meddlings, and didn't bother to make this awareness known to him.

Those things that are no more

Therefore, by the end of the show we are presented with the perception that the movie´s biggest and most solid representation of communism was Alexander himself. He, just like East Germany, was responsible for creating a false representation of just about everything around the human being. Even if he aimed for good ends, implying communism can be well intentioned, his effort was groundless and unsustainable, as his mother by all means seemed to live in terms with the former regime only to restrain and cope with her own frustration. Although the character´s insistence on an untenable lie may prevent the viewer from establishing a good link of identification with his fortune, due to its good argumentation “Goodbye Lenin!” is well delivered and worth seeing.

Shame (2011)

Much has evolved on Steve McQueen´s filmmaking since “Hunger” (also reviewed on this blog). Hunger is unhelpfully divided into sections, as if there were three different short films, binded by a intermingled story. Now, with “Shame”, the director presents us the argument as a whole, so the movie remains serious as the subject requires, but that kind of documentary dullness is past. No wonder the accumulated praises “Shame” has collected during the past year, to which this review only intends to add.

The main character is single, almost past the usual wedding age, and has a office job, meaning he is not a boss, neither is materialistic well succeeded. He could pass as a usual guy, unless for his good looks. The important fact for the developing story is that Brandon (played by Micheal Fassbender) is addicted to sex, to an extensive degree. He has to practice onanism at waking, at the office´s bathroom, and, when he doesn´t hire a prostitute, also at home at night. The audience begins to capture the evil consequences of this addiction when he is called upon his sister Sissy (played by Carrey Mulligan), as she is homeless and in need of a shelter. From this point onwards Brandon begins to show that what matters for him is keeping his routine, which depends on a fragile balance his sister does not belong. The (just) argumentation against such an addiction ranges from the incapability to have a  regular affair to the beating after having courted (using quite foul language) a committed woman.

 

He wants her out

Sex addiction is even more difficult to expose and consider, because, unlike alcoholism, it´s often taken as normality or, at most, as a machismo excess. This is why Steve McQueen got it right when he decided to depict an addiction seldom discussed. The only major slip he committed was on setting the main character to sniff cocaine by the middle of the projection. This is so because besides being artistic creations, when movies are about addiction (such as Zemecki´s “Flight”) they have the important role of exposing the human misery that comes along, as a warning for everyone. “Shame” is well accomplished with the exposure. But in associating Brandon with cocaine the director somehow fell short on the warning, erecting a barrier preventing the audience from feeling itself exposed to sexual addiction: very few people consider themselves capable of consuming illegal drugs.

Good looks isn't all

On the other hand it provides a detachment from the characters plight, thus providing a more comfortable (and psychological safe) experience. Still, if the cocaine scene were not there a bigger number of people would consider their own way of life (personal “mores”) more lengthly , becoming more aware and less susceptible to the depicted scourge of sexual addiction.