Yes emphatically not to be missed, and not to be under-estimated
despite its wit and good humour.
Allow me absolutely to agree:-
This is not just about nostalgia for chintzy objects that might be
regarded as a German version of camp. It is also about a growing
disenchantment with the new capitalist world that they had assumed
would be a kind of utopia
It is on many levels. One is the destruction of a coercive narrow
idealististic society by an increasing pre-occupation with
commodities. It is the commodities of the east that are mocked,
although Spreewald gurken no doubt could be tasty enough. But it is
the horror of the far more massive victorious consumer society of the
west that indirectly is questioned.
The intrusion of a massive advertisement for Coca Cola, is
counterbalanced later by an extraordinary image of an admonitory
statue of
Lenin, being carried through the air by a helicopter, reproving the
naive communist stalwart for having forgotten perhaps a deeper meaning
of socialism.
And perhaps a realisation that although it is the hunger for the
commodities of the East Germany (the title is a pun) that is
ridiculed, the more sophisticated and extensive domination of
commodities is found in the society of the west.
There must be something more significant to human relationships than
what happens in between purchasing commodities.
Its massive popularity in Germany suggests it has struck deeper chords
than a remarkably good comedy film with many clever cinematic
allusions.
See it more than once with a gap of a few weeks.
Chris Burford
London
- Original Message -
From: Louis Proyect [EMAIL PROTECTED]
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Sent: Friday, February 27, 2004 2:21 PM
Subject: [PEN-L] Goodbye, Lenin opens in NYC
I reviewed this film about the phenomenon of ostalgie a couple of
weeks ago. It is now opening up at Lincoln Plaza Cinemas
Broadway between 62nd and 63rd. Not to be missed.
--
The Marxism list: www.marxmail.org
