As an epilogue to the 35th anniversary of the Fall of the Berlin Wall that was commemorated on November 9th, we remember the many lives – and films – this crucial cold war event affected and inspired. Though the topic of German reunification has also been widely discussed in British and Hollywood cinema over the decades, we want to highlight the German films which managed to best depict life in East and West Germany during this politically tense and socially divisive era. Some of the most gripping movies about this historical period do not chronicle its political events directly, but focus on interpersonal relationships during the cold war years, therefore approaching the topic from a more subjective point-of-view. Be it fated love stories, mother-son relationships or even touching encounters between strangers, we give you an in-depth review of the most captivating films chronicling the lives and losses around the Fall of the Wall.

1. Wings of Desire (German original: Der Himmel über Berlin, 1987)

Perhaps the most iconic movie ever made about post-World War II Berlin is Wim Wenders’ unforgettable Wings of Desire¹ (1987), which marks his first German film² after having worked in the United States for almost a decade. This art film is a whimsical, poetic and deeply philosophical story about the urban, historical and psychological boundaries that consume a fractured German post-war society. Following the romantic story of the guardian angel Damiel (Bruno Ganz), who shadows and guides the ordinary people of Berlin in their everyday activities, the film depicts an encounter between the divine and the human across many seemingly irreconcilable barriers. As he falls in love with the human trapeze performer Marion (Solveig Dommartin), Damiel is seduced by a desire to become mortal and embrace passion, vulnerability and even the possibility of death. Having premiered only a few years before the fall of the Berlin Wall, the fantasy drama expresses a real nostalgia for a united Germany, metaphorized by a hopeless yearning for deeper emotional understanding between people.

Characterized by its solemn undertone and its intriguing integration of historical footage from a destroyed Berlin shortly after the fall of Nazism, the film portrays a permanently broken Berlin rigged with gray walls, bankrupt circuses and a barren Potsdamer Platz; symbols of surveillance, outdated traditions and of being stuck in time. Yet, the film’s sporadic aerial shots, symbolic of the angels’ watchful gaze, give the film a strange lightness by showing a Berlin that stretches beyond artificial borders. What is most striking about this feature film are the scenes in which Damiel and his angel friend Cassiel (Otto Sander) are seen walking along the ‘no-man’s-land’ between the walls, a place that would usually have meant certain death for people trying to flee to the other side. The angels’ superhuman abilities, such as their ability to hear thoughts or soothe minds, therefore attest to their transcendality; they transcend man-made borders and render them absurd and impotent through their divine right. As Damiel lays off his wings and rejects his immortality, he comes to see the world in color rather than in black-and-white, signaling his transition into a higher state of sensation, consciousness and empathy. In a way, Damiel and Marion’s unconventional love story crafts our understanding of Wenders’ film as its own peculiar love declaration to Berlin in all its roughness and beauty, despite the city’s dark history of Nazi obsession, war-time destruction and cold war tensions. 

2. Goodbye Lenin! (2003)

Probably the funniest film about life before, during and after the Fall of the Berlin wall is Wolfgang Becker’s tragic-comedy Goodbye Lenin!. Acting as a stylistic antidote to Wings of Desire, Goodbye Lenin!³ follows the unconventional love story of a young man towards his mother, simultaneously satirizing and romanticizing ordinary family life in East Berlin. Exhibiting an interpersonal dynamic rarely appreciated in mainstream cinema, the story starts with a bang as middle-aged mother Christiane Kerner (Katrin Sass), a convinced East German communist, witnesses her son Alex (Daniel Brühl) attending protests against the Democratic Republic’s regime and falls into a shock-induced coma. During the several months Christiane lies unconscious, the German Democratic Republic collapses and changes forever; the wall falls, Germany is reunified, commercial American brands like McDonalds infiltrate the market and the former republic becomes a democracy. After his mother wakes up, Alex does his best to maintain a GDR lifestyle, aesthetic and reality, knowing that his mother would not be able to mentally cope with this life-altering political event.

Acting as a reminder of why we lie to protect our loved ones, this colorful movie comments on the lengths we are willing to go to maintain the status quo; Alex manipulates news reports, plasters up capitalist billboards and maintains East German interiors, fabricating a pseudo-GDR reality in order to keep his mother ‘happy.’ Despite his loving intentions, however, Alex also unintentionally keeps his bed-confined mother prisoner in a decaying ancient order, ironically emulating the tactics of the former state. And who has Alex become, if not a mere product of the GDR’s political strategies? Some critics have noted a certain pungent Ostalgie – hyper-idealized nostalgia for the GDR’s way of life – throughout the film and have consequently approached it with suspicion; does Goodbye Lenin! fetishize a complex political regime and ‘dumb it down’ a bit too much for box-office success? I think not, given the subjective nuance uncovered by the film’s ending, signaled by the return of Alex’s long-lost father after the wall’s fall, which triggers Christiane to reveal a political secret that has changed the entire family forever. Thus, the film not only mourns the loss of the GDR in a charming way, but also seriously grieves the actual lives wasted by the cold war efforts.

3. The Lives of Others (German original: Das Leben der Anderen, 2006)

This successful directorial debut⁴ from Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck counteracts the comedic outlook of Goodbye Lenin! as well as the nostalgic lens of Wings of Desire towards German division with a somber commentary on the oppressive forces of the German Democratic Republic’s state security service, the Staatssicherheit (Colloquial: Stasi). Detailing the romantic relationship between talented playwright Georg Dreyman (Sebastian Koch) and his actress-muse Christa-Maria Sieland (Martina Gedeck), the film takes a voyeuristic turn when Stasi spy Gerd Wiesler (Ulrich Mühe) is instructed to surveil their apartment in order to find incriminating material by a jealous Stasi officer, who blackmails Christa-Maria into having an affair. Gerd, who has dedicated his life to the notorious state organization, starts to get consumed by the personal life and yearning of these two intricate characters through his professional compulsion. 

By occupying most of his days listening to their conversations, arguments and secrets, an uptight civil servant comes to empathize with the couples’ private suffering under the political regime and starts to question his own unthinking submission to the East German government. Consequently, the movie gives an intimate, almost loving portrayal of its characters through the lens of a surprisingly affectionate and morally-gray spectator, trying to do them justice within a setting rigged with injustice.

The progressive decay of Gerd’s professionalism, transitioning from serious apathy into obsessive concern, comments on the need for civil courage within social structures plagued by power and paranoia. Gerd’s character development, however, is also marked by a problematic interest in the erotic life of the couple, which reminds him of the lack of passion and purpose in his own life. The Lives of Others is therefore a captivating and highly original watch, reminding us that heroism can be found in the most unremarkable and ordinary of people. 

Written by Anna Hammerich

References

¹ Bradshaw, P. (2022, June 22). Wings of Desire review – Wim Wenders’ elegiac hymn to a broken cold-war Berlin. The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/film/2022/jun/22/wings-of-desire-review-wim-wenders-elegiac-hymn-to-a-broken-cold-war-berlin

² Wim Wenders Stiftung. (n.d.). Wings of Desire. Wim Wenders Stiftung. Retrieved November 14, 2024, from https://wimwendersstiftung.de/en/film/wings-of-desire/

³ Bradshaw, P. (2003, July 25). Good Bye, Lenin!. The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2003/jul/25/artsfeatures.dvdreviews

⁴ Bradshaw, P. (2007, April 13). The Lives of Others. The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/film/2007/apr/13/worldcinema.drama