Eastern European

The Coles didn’t enjoy the now traditional lack of comfort in the Guildhall cinema seats last Thursday but we did appreciate the good-natured and clever feature we had set out to view: Good Bye Lenin! The plot involves a middle-aged woman who has devoted herself to the communist party in East Germany. She falls into a coma but awakens after the Berlin Wall has been dismantled and Germany is reunified so her loving son goes to extremes to hide this from her lest she falls ill again from the shock. I found it all very touching. The period details added to the enjoyment while the history of both pre- and post-unification was captured intelligently. Above all, though, this was a film about how much a son loves his mother and was all the more delightful for that.