I’ve just been to see Good Bye Lenin! at the film society, along with Ben and Anne.

Owen won’t be pleased to hear that he missed out on a really very good film (frust­uri­at­ingly events conspired against him and he wasn’t able to come along) .

I don’t know much about german cinema. The only other german film I remem­ber seeing is Tatoo, which couldn’t be much more of a contrast to this one if it tried.

This one is a comedy, but not overtly so, and it could easily fit into so many other genres. Its full of clever polit­ical imagery, inter­woven with some really very subtle family emotions. I’m finding it diffi­cult to put this into words — there were so many parts of the film that stood out for me, but I don’t want to give any of it away. The way Alex (Daniel Brühl) gets excited by the silli­est things because of his obses­sion is just fantast­ic­ally played out, being both touch­ing and very funny, and the way that his mother is played, especially towards the end of the film, is very well done.

I think the best thing I can do is tell you to see it yourself. Your local video shop is bound to have a copy by now.