Good Bye Lenin! (2003) |
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Good Bye Lenin! (2003) |
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| BUY IT |
| General | Extras | ||
| Category | Drama |
Main Menu Audio Featurette-Making Of-Mini (1:28) Theatrical Trailer-1.85:1, not 16x9 enhanced, Dolby Digital 2.0 (2:04) Teaser Trailer-1.85:1, 16x9 enhanced, Dolby Digital 2.0 (0:53) Music Video-1.85:1, 16x9 enhanced, Dolby Digital 2.0 (2:20) DVD-ROM Extras-Wallpaper Trailer-Owning Mahowny, Tais Toi!, Letters To Ali, The Party's Over Trailer-Together, Nowhere In Africa Easter Egg-3 DVD Credits |
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| Rating |
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| Year Of Production | 2003 | ||
| Running Time | 116:20 (Case: 121) | ||
| RSDL / Flipper | RSDL (90:46) | Cast & Crew | |
| Start Up | Menu | ||
| Region Coding | 1,2,3,4,5,6 | Directed By | Wolfgang Becker |
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Studio
Distributor |
X Filme Madman Entertainment |
Starring |
Daniel Brühl Katrin Saß Chulpan Khamatova Maria Simon Florian Lukas Alexander Beyer Burghart Klaußner Michael Gwisdek |
| Case | Amaray-Transparent-Secure Clip | ||
| RPI | $29.95 | Music | Yann Tiersen |
| Video | Audio | ||
| Pan & Scan/Full Frame | None |
German Dolby Digital 5.1 (448Kb/s) German Dolby Digital 2.0 (224Kb/s) |
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| Widescreen Aspect Ratio | 1.85:1 | ||
| 16x9 Enhancement |
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| Video Format | 576i (PAL) | ||
| Original Aspect Ratio | 1.85:1 | Miscellaneous | |
| Jacket Pictures | No | ||
| Subtitles |
English German for the Hearing Impaired |
Smoking | Yes |
| Annoying Product Placement | No | ||
| Action In or After Credits | No | ||
The fall of East Germany and its reunification with West Germany to recreate Germany happened with a degree of rapidity that caught just about everyone by surprise. Basically in the space of a few months, forty years of the German Democratic Republic was tossed aside in the rush towards reunification. It is doubtful that anyone who ever saw the live images of the Berlin Wall tumbling will ever forget them, especially as literally days before East Germans were still paying the ultimate penalty for trying to defect to the West.
So when your mother Christiane (Katrin Sass), a staunch Socialist with honours from the Party, witnesses her son Alex (Daniel Bruhl) being arrested in an anti-government protest rally, it comes as quite a shock. So much of a shock in fact that she suffers a heart attack - and with no one offering assistance quickly enough, she lapses into a coma. That coma lasts eight months and happens to cover the entire period of the fall of the German Democratic Republic. So what do you do when your mother misses the most fundamental of changes in her beloved country, then awakens from the coma with her doctor warning you that any shock or excitement could kill her. Well, for Alex that means pretending that the fall of the Berlin Wall never happened and that East Germany continues to exist as a shining light of Communism.
Of course, to perpetuate this massive lie requires everyone to live the lie - including Alex's sister Ariane (Maria Simon) and Alex's new Russian girlfriend Lara (Chulpan Khamatova). The practicalities of perpetuating the lie are even greater - no sooner had the Wall fallen than East Germany was flooded with goods from the West. This made it virtually impossible to find those traditional East German foodstuffs that his mother keeps asking for... Notwithstanding the virtual impossibility of the maintenance of the lie, Alex proves to be a loving son by doing all that he can to make the German Democratic Republic exist - at least in one bedroom of their flat.
The basic story premise holds plenty of possibilities and in general the film has been hailed as a fine effort, combining drama and comedy in a well balanced mix. Unfortunately, I do not hold to that particular viewpoint. Yes, the story held tremendous promise but ultimately the film failed to engage me and the perpetuation of the lie simply lacked credence at times. There are a number of reasons for this but foremost amongst them is that I simply did not believe the characterisations at all and the relationships between the characters lacked any real chemistry to me. The relationship between Alex and Christiane is paramount to the success of the film yet I was never convinced of a son's deep love for his mother. The breakdown of the relationship between Alex and Ariane as the strain tells on Ariane also did not have enough credence to my mind. The acting overall was adequate enough but not exactly stellar - and this film needed stellar performances. I also felt that the film could have been a little tighter, with some of the family stuff (notably the scene involving the full frontal nude shot of Alexander Beyer) not moving the plot forward at all - and thus could quite cheerfully have been excised from the film. A tighter film could perhaps have made more of an impact than the version we have here.
Overall, a film that I had heard a bit about but a film that failed to live up to expectations.
The transfer is presented in its original theatrical aspect ratio of 1.85:1, and it is 16x9 enhanced.
The overriding impression from the transfer is that it is a little on the soft side. Pausing the image at any point quite clearly demonstrates the consistency of this, so it might be inherent in the source material. Detail is still rather good though, just not as great as it perhaps could have been. Shadow detail is good in general, with just a few places where it could perhaps have been improved. Grain is not that much of an issue, with just some light stuff to noted here and there.
The colours are not as vibrant and as bright as I first expected, but thinking about this why would they be? Iron Curtain countries before the fall of Communism were hardly the brightest, most vibrant of places so any tendency towards a more muted, matte palette would be pretty much in keeping with the state of play in East Germany before the fall of the Wall. There is nothing wrong with the palette at all, with oversaturation and colour bleed absent from proceedings.
There seems to be a reasonably consistent problem in the transfer with movement across the frame creating quite an impression of lack of resolution. Since this is not during camera movement, it is most likely inherent in the source material and therefore not an MPEG artefact. Irrespective of this, it is noticeable and does detract from the film somewhat. Film-to-video artefacts are however a bigger problem here, with moiré artefacting quite noticeable in banners and blinds at 8:56 and 32:32 for instance. There is also plenty of modest aliasing to be seen, most notably in cars (such as at 86:20 and 104:25). To round out the problems, cross colouration is noted in the shirt at 89:34. Being a recent film, it is as expected quite clean and there are no really noticeable film artefacts in the transfer.
This is an RSDL formatted DVD with the layer change coming quite late at 90:46. I missed it completely during playback of the film so it cannot be that disruptive to the flow of the film.
There are just the two subtitle options on the disc, being English and German for the Hearing Impaired efforts. Since my German is fairly limited, I cannot attest to how accurate the English efforts are, but they seem to make sense most of the time and seem to be well timed with respect of the German dialogue.
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There are two soundtracks included here, both being German efforts. One is a Dolby Digital 5.1 soundtrack and the other an almost superfluous Dolby Digital 2.0 soundtrack. I listened only to the six channel soundtrack.
The dialogue comes up pretty well in the soundtrack, and there does not appear to be anything in the way of audio sync issues.
The original score comes from Yann Tiersen. It is a pretty good soundtrack too, albeit lacking something to really make it stand out.
The six channel soundtrack offers a fairly aggressive surround experience, unusually so for a film that really is pretty much dialogue based. If anything, the bass is perhaps a little too prevalent in the mix, but when you experience the rumble of the passing military might, then perhaps the purpose of the mix will be understood. The rear surrounds are quite well used to flesh out the ambience of the soundtrack and is certainly well noted. The fronts are well handled and whilst not the best that you will ever hear, there is certainly little wrong with the end result.
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This is a decidedly underwhelming extras package, one that does not further your understanding of the film at all.
Decent enough with some modest audio enhancement for the main menu.
This is perhaps the most pointless making of featurette that I have ever had the misfortune to see. Clocking in at a staggeringly brief 88 seconds, it comprises some behind the scenes footage, sans any dialogue whatsoever, with just music playing over the top of the video. Absolute rubbish that is not in the least any better than having nothing whatsoever. The transfer is presented in an aspect ratio of 1.85:1 that is 16x9 enhanced, with Dolby Digital 2.0 sound for the music. The video looks a little drab at times.
Nothing overly special here either, just a fairly typical modern day two minute synopsis of the film for those that cannot spend two hours with the film. The transfer is presented in an aspect ratio of 1.85:1 that is not 16x9 enhanced. The soundtrack is a Dolby Digital 2.0 effort and there are optional English subtitles. The technical quality is very good.
A little longer than what I would normally expect for a teaser trailer, it is reasonable enough but is probably better classified as an extended television spot. The transfer is presented in an aspect ratio of 1.85:1 that is not 16x9 enhanced. The soundtrack is a Dolby Digital 2.0 effort and there are no subtitles. The transfer is somewhat affected by aliasing.
The full version of the music scene in the night club, so it is hardly a music video per se. The transfer is presented in an aspect ratio of 1.85:1 that is 16x9 enhanced, with Dolby Digital 2.0 sound for the music. There is nothing much wrong with the transfer other than the general issues that apply to the main feature itself.
Comprising a massive six different patterns, each in three different resolutions to suit your normal screen resolution, this is a fine demonstration of what a pointless exercise can be achieved if you really don't think about how to put together an informative extras package. This seems more like "we have to do something and we don't have much space". Completely forgettable and a waste of time.
The obligatory Madman propaganda, this time featuring the trailers for Owning Mahowny (1:59), Tais Toi! (1:53), Letters To Ali (1:52), The Party's Over (1:54), Together (1:54) and Nowhere In Africa (2:21). If The AV Channel ever drop the prices of their DVDs to below the $20 mark (this is the upper limit I set on DVD purchases nowadays - I don't mind waiting for films until they fall below this pricing point), I would be snapping a few of these up pronto, so the trailers must be doing their job properly. All are presented in an aspect ratio of 1.85:1, except Tais Toi! which is 2.35:1, and are not 16x9 enhanced. The soundtracks are all Dolby Digital 2.0 in the respective languages. There are optional English subtitles on Tais Toi! and Together, whilst Owning Mahowny suffers somewhat from aliasing.
Fairly obvious ones - just highlight the pickle jar in the Main Menu, Extras Menu and Setup Menu and you will get to see a 56 second montage of the East German food products used in the film, a sixty nine second sing-along version of the pioneer song sung by the kids in the movie (sing-along if you can sing in German anyway) and finally a thirty one second look at the CGI work in the Lenin scene (this is presumably a very brief glimpse of the 21 minute featurette found on the Region 1 release).
NOTE: To view non-R4 releases, your equipment needs to be multi-zone compatible and usually also NTSC compatible.
Good Bye Lenin! was released in Region 1 (US) by Columbia TriStar a few months ago. In comparison, the Region 4 release is missing:
All the extras on the Region 1 (US) release feature English subtitles. The Region 1 release misses out on:
On the balance, the extras available on the Region 1 release are substantially better than the modest collection available on the Region 4 release. The Region 1 (Canadian) release adds an additional French Dolby Digital 5.1 dub soundtrack and French subtitles for the feature, but loses all the trailers. On the balance it is a better proposition than the Region 4 release but not better than the Region 1 (US) release.
There are an absolute plethora of releases available in Region 2. The pick of the bunch would probably be the German 3 disc Deluxe Edition in terms of content, although I am presuming (based upon my lousy German) that it comes without English subtitles. It seems to include the two soundtrack options of the Region 4 release, but gains the two audio commentaries as well as an Audio Description for the Blind. The main additions comprise three additional Featurettes - one of 75 minutes, one of 16 minutes and a Making of running 71 minutes - to complement the two efforts included on the Region 1 release. If you don't need English subtitles on everything then this would be the release to go for. The "ordinary" German release has just a six channel soundtrack, the two audio commentaries and the audio description, along with a few other minor extras. If you don't need English subtitles, this would still be better than the Region 4 release. If you do need English subtitles however, the Region 1 (US) release remains unsurpassed.
The United Kingdom release from Fox is definitely the one to avoid. It features the same soundtrack options as the Region 4 but the only extras are a trailer for the film plus a trailer for a British film, The Swimming Pool. The whole release falls down due to the burned in subtitles. At least the Region 4 release is better than the United Kingdom release!
Whilst Good Bye Lenin! has received generally glowing praise around the world, as evidenced by its awards and nominations, this is one occasion when I am bucking the trend big time. Frankly, I found this a mediocre effort at best, a film that failed to engage me at all - despite the obvious possibilities that the story offered. The fact that I was already looking at my watch with less than half the film played indicates how boring I found it. The acting was competent but I would hardly classify it as excellent and the relationships between the characters simply failed to convince me. With a transfer that is somewhat soft and decidedly not what I was expecting, overall this left me less than satisfied. Perhaps this is a case where I was not in the right frame of mind for the review session, but I would suggest that this might be one where you rent before plonking your cash down.
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| Review Equipment | |
| DVD | Denon DVD-1600, using RGB output |
| Display | Loewe Aconda 9381ZW. Calibrated with Video Essentials. This display device is 16x9 capable. |
| Audio Decoder | Built in to amplifier/receiver. Calibrated with Video Essentials. |
| Amplification | Yamaha RXV-795 |
| Speakers | Energy Speakers: centre EXLC; left and right C-2; rears EXLR; and subwoofer ES-12XL |