Interrogation Film Analysis

While Maciek stakes out his target, he meets a girl that he quickly falls for. With love on his mind he begins contemplating if he wishes to continue fighting, or settle down and accept the country’s situation. Even as he begins swaying from his intent to oppose the Communists, he still cannot embrace his true identity. He admits to his new love, Krystyna (Ewa Krzyzewska), that he feels like he knows her so well already, yet he cannot admit to her that he is a resistance fighter. His true character remains receded and hidden; at one point he explains to her that he always wears sunglasses because he spent too much time in the sewers during the Warsaw uprising against the Nazis. You are left wondering if he truly fought the Nazis, or was

Wendy Graham Westphal analyzes the film in Dis-membering and Re-membering the GDR: Material Culture and East Germany’s Self-Reflexive Memory in Good Bye, Lenin!, noting that the film provides a, “symbolic ‘island’ in which the values of the GDR continued to exist…The protagonist, Alex (played by Daniel Brühl), attempts to symbolically prolong the existence of the GDR for his critically ill mother (played by Katrin Sass), who is a strong believer in the Socialist ideals of her country” (Westphal 3). After his mother suffers a severe heart attack, Alex with the help of his sister (Maria Simon) and girlfriend (Chulpan Khamatova), go to great lengths in reversing the past 8 months when his mother was in a coma and their Socialist government had fallen. They dig through old trash bins to find Socialist food jars, replace their new western clothes, furniture, and shades to appease their bedridden mother. In collecting old items to rebuild the past for his mother, “Where does Alex look for the East? In the garbage” (Westphal 14). Rather than embrace the newfound Western culture, he is forced to effectively assume the identity of a destitute person digging for food

His last piece of propaganda declares that the East-German premier has resigned, proclaiming that socialism has achieved success in recent events by attracting immigrants from the West. The new fake-premier declares that German socialism has inspired people to immigrate to their small country, and that they will now open their borders. Following a replay of the fall of the Berlin Wall, the fake news segment states that thousands of West-Germans stampeded across the border. The idea that East-Germany and their Socialist façade actually appealed to immigrants makes Alex admit, “that the ‘GDR’ he creates for his mother is not what it was ‘really’ like, but is actually better than the original” (Westphal 5). Alex’s actions, however comical, are meant to act as a microcosm of ludicrous impositions that Central Europe accepted from Socialist regimes. The film’s overall point is to have the audience evaluate themselves as though they were in the position of the mother. So many allowed themselves to have their identity defined by regimes, being fed Socialist products and manipulated by propaganda. Although some of these people may have had relatively painless lives like Alex’s family, it still does not justify or prove that ignorance is