RedCeltic
5th January 2004, 18:48
Awakening the inner socialist
http://www.theage.com.au/ffxImage/urlpicture_id_1070351724839_2003/12/04/lenin_0712,0.jpg
Daniel Bruehl plays Alex, who tries to protect his mother, Christiane (Katrin Sass), from the shock of the Berlin Wall's collapse, in Goodbye, Lenin!
The Berlin Wall may have fallen but a new film taps into a longing for the old ways, reports Nora Fitzgerald.
Even Katrin Sass, one of the best-known actors in the former East Germany and star of 28 films, could not figure out how to live her life in the unified Germany.
"It took me 10 years to find my way here," Sass says.
"I was on the very edge of the abyss and something like a miracle happened. I started getting small offers, some good scripts, and then the film Goodbye, Lenin! It was like waking up again."
Sass, 45, has received critical acclaim for her portrayal in the film of an East German who goes into a coma and misses the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989.
The woman, Christiane, wakes up eight months later, and her son Alex (Daniel Bruehl) is told she can't experience any excitement or shocks, lest she revert to the coma and die.
With the help of his sister, Alex maniacally recreates a tiny biosphere of the German Democratic Republic for his ailing mother to shield her socialist eyes from the obvious deluge of Western products and values.
FULL STORY (http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2003/12/31/1072546581407.html)
http://www.theage.com.au/ffxImage/urlpicture_id_1070351724839_2003/12/04/lenin_0712,0.jpg
Daniel Bruehl plays Alex, who tries to protect his mother, Christiane (Katrin Sass), from the shock of the Berlin Wall's collapse, in Goodbye, Lenin!
The Berlin Wall may have fallen but a new film taps into a longing for the old ways, reports Nora Fitzgerald.
Even Katrin Sass, one of the best-known actors in the former East Germany and star of 28 films, could not figure out how to live her life in the unified Germany.
"It took me 10 years to find my way here," Sass says.
"I was on the very edge of the abyss and something like a miracle happened. I started getting small offers, some good scripts, and then the film Goodbye, Lenin! It was like waking up again."
Sass, 45, has received critical acclaim for her portrayal in the film of an East German who goes into a coma and misses the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989.
The woman, Christiane, wakes up eight months later, and her son Alex (Daniel Bruehl) is told she can't experience any excitement or shocks, lest she revert to the coma and die.
With the help of his sister, Alex maniacally recreates a tiny biosphere of the German Democratic Republic for his ailing mother to shield her socialist eyes from the obvious deluge of Western products and values.
FULL STORY (http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2003/12/31/1072546581407.html)