Entry Seven: Week IX

i am going to say this with the intention of trying not to make excuses: my critical thinking skills are seriously stunted. with that non-excuse out of the way, let’s talk about Goodbye Lenin, a divided city, nostalgia, and idealistic notions of the past. first of all, I would like to point out that as a “Berlin film,” Goodbye Lenin does a remarkable job of avoiding the commodification of Berlin’s rather rocky history, and addresses the past in a non-accusatory, yet insightful way (at least from an outsider’s perspective). i am not suggesting that ALL the films we watched before Goodbye Lenin commodified the city’s history, but i feel as though this particular film gave a better idea of the different perspectives that exist about Berlin. for me, Goodbye Lenin is about idealism; an idealistic world, an ideal childhood, an idyllic future and past. both Alex and his mother possess different intrinsic beliefs and thus hold their own, sometimes conflicting ideals about the world. Alex, in some light, is a bit of a revolutionary. he seeks change, represents youth and newness, and is receptive to adopting new beliefs. and still, he meanders rather romantically through the ideal East Berlin fantasy he creates for his ailing mother, obsessing over the loss of that part of his life and recreating it in a nostalgic way. living in berlin in 2007, it is crystal clear that the faux-DDR paraphernalia on every street corner in mitte is a popular way to address the city’s communist past and in turn, commodify history. marketed nostalgia of the East (or ostalgia) does little to nothing in terms of giving outsiders or tourists (and maybe even Berliners) any perspective on what a city divided by communism was like. is that even the purpose or responsibility of marketed nostalgia, to enlighten? i would not think so because it goes without saying that anything “East” in Berlin is treated as kitsch and usually void of its own historical implications. getting back to my point about the movie, this is why Alex in is such an excellent example of a new, successful perspective of Berlin that failed to surface in other films we watched. through this character Alex, we see someone who has sought a “Western” existence, acclimated as an East Berliner, and still looks back on his childhood in East Berlin with a certain amount of nostalgia. his jolly, nostalgic fabrication of a still existing East Berlin touches on the kitsch (i.e., Spreewald pickles) and yet positively engages with Berlin’s past; Alex denies the tendency to commodify his experience of East Berlin by remembering himself growing up as an “Ossie.” where Alex might idealize the West and what it offers, I believe he remembers, even celebrates, the East in a way that the West could never be celebrated. Alex’s mother very much idealizes the East in a way that does more in the way of revealing its historical relevance as an alternative to Western capitalism and not simply as a boyhood dream. her idyllic vision of the city does not come through as kitsch, but as a time full of potential – which i feel is a rather rare perspective on Communist Berlin. together, Alex and his mother embrace history by actually uncovering the past where most other Berlin films tell history or tell the past. ultimately, Goodbye Lenin pokes fun at the complexity of division without being condemning and avoids getting “touristy” about the part of history with which it is engaged.