Goodbye Lenin Response Paper – Christiane’s Birthday Scene

Goodbye Lenin Response Paper – Christiane’s Birthday Scene

The film ‘Goodbye Lenin’ shows how life in East Berlin transformed so dramatically and rapidly after the wall fell – in this case, the transformations that occurred in the 8 months (in which Christiane was in a coma) are illustrated. These changes can be seen when Alex attempts to hide all signs of capitalism and the West from his mother, and in my opinion, the key scene that depicts his lies most clearly is the one in which friends and family gather in Christiane’s bedroom for her birthday. They are all stood around Christiane whilst she is positioned in the centre – it is as if they are putting on a show for her. Alex has convinced her friends and neighbours to play along with the charade and hide the truth. In this scene we can see the web of lies that has developed – the clothes they wear and gifts they give are all counterfeit GDR, lies are told about Lara and Rainer, children are dressed up and told to sing, and finally, they lie to try and explain the Coca Cola advert.

Firstly, Christiane sits in an artificial Communist bedroom that Alex had elaborately prepared for her. In order to construct this GDR environment, he had to recover East German furniture from the dump – which could show that the GDR, along with its ideologies and principles, is now worthless. The reconstructed bedroom shows us how dull GDR bedrooms were (in comparison to life 8 months on) and this reflects how dull and simple GDR life in general was. Other things in this scene are also artificial and have been prepared to add to the web of lies – for example, some of the guests change their clothes to GDR clothes, the food they eat is different (Alex hides new capitalist food in old GDR jars) and the gifts given to Christiane is very typically GDR. These lies and disguises show how much has changed since Christiane fell into a coma, and symbolises a new found freedom – every aspect of life after the wall fell is less restricted....