Editor;
I, as an anglophile, have a well entrenched idea of the German psyche. German people are remote, distant, aloof and have no sense of humor. After one evening of the Pattaya Rooftop Film Festival last Friday, I have had to seriously alter my opinion.
My wife and I attended the opening night at the dusit D2 baraquda and saw a movie called “Good Bye, Lenin”, by Wolfgang Becker. One of the most moving, humorous and yet poignant pieces of cinematography it has been my fortune to watch.
In essence a woman in Communist East Germany lapses into a coma, from which she recovers, but only after the Berlin Wall has come down. Having been told by the doctors that she must not be stressed, her family attempts to shield her from the awful knowledge that the socialist experiment did not work, and capitalism was now ruling in East Germany. This they did, even producing false TV news bulletins to say that it was not the East Germans defecting to the west, but it was all the West Germans defecting to the east. In the middle of all that were the family members with their own agendas, who kept up the deceit until the mother dies.
A complete range of German films has been brought to Pattaya by Dr. Norbert Spitz the director of the Goethe Institute, and they will be shown each Friday night for the next eight weeks at the dusit D2 baraquda in their rooftop lounge. The films are (naturally) in German, but all have English sub-titles.
I do recommend you book (038 769 999 or email [email protected]).
Dr. Iain Corness
