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Exam Film questions
What strategies does Angst Essen Seele Auf employ in order to make its audience think critically
about social prejudice?
Strategy
emptiness and space

Examples
lonely wedding scene: the camera
angle is extremely wide, as if
distancing itself from the couple
...
e
...

Emmi and Ali are the only
customers, and are framed by the
doorway
...
At the scene
outside the cafe on holiday, Emmi
and Ali are surrounded by a sea of
empty chairs, exemplifying the lack
of social context or acceptance for
their relationship

barriers and architecture

When Emmi first invites Ali up to
her apartment, the nosy neighbour
picks her moment to speak to her
through the grate in her doorway
doorways are crucial in the film,
there is constantly a door in the
background, or framing people e
...
In the cafe scene,
the staff and other customers
stand off-camera, staring
judgementally
...
The viewer thinks
about how social prejudice
affects and isolates the lives
of others, and how small,
separate events and the
views of individual people
build up to make life
intolerable
the architecture and physical
objects used as frames and
barriers in the film are
metaphors for the
relationships, or barriers of
disgust and prejudice
between people
...

The physical barrier it a
metaphor for the way in
which she judges Emmi and
does not want to associate
herself with her - yet at the

same time she gossips about
Emmi incessantly
The separation of Emmi from
her workmates by the
banisters shows not only the
physical exclusion of her from
the group after they find out
about Ali, but the
psychological and social
exclusion she is being put
through
...
Viewers
are left to wonder over the
superficiality of
acquaintanceships and
people's judgements over
things which do not affect
them
silence and stillness

The film is remarkable for its long
periods of silences as much as its
visual characteristics
...
The staging looks
stiff and awkward, as if time is
standing still
...


The silences used in the film
emphasise the coldness from
other Germans towards Emmi
and Ali's relationship, and
also the widening gap
between them during the
second half of the film
...


One of the scenes where silence is
used most effectively is when Emmi
reveals to her children that she has
got married
...
Nobody
says anything until after one of her
sons has kicked the tv in and broken
the silence
...
The
people in the bar glare coldly
because they don't know her,
she is old and German and
awkward

The film is also different in its
distinct lack of soundtrack or other
noises added in
...
Emmi constantly dresses in
bright colours and geometric
patterns, which are both
eyecatching and jarring compared
to the sombre tone of the film
...
The fact that he is
well dressed, had in some ways
adopted Western fashions etc
...


close-ups of facial expression close ups of facial expressions are
used in many scenes to convey the
German's attitudes when words do
not suffice
...

Despite the fact that he is
always clean and well
presented, wearing a suit
most days, and assumedly has
adopted western styles of
clothing does not matter to
them - they are blinded with
hate simply due to his skin
colour
...
The
script of the film is kept fairly
minimal and general,
therefore facial expressions
and body language become
even more important when
portraying racism and social
prejudice
...


How do the characters in Goodbye Lenin represent different attitudes towards the fall of the DDR?
Character(s)

Filmic device(s)

Attitude towards der Wende

The Kerne's neighbours
(the bald old man, Herr
Ganske , in particular)

Herr Ganske is shown as being
close to tears during Christiane's
birthday celebrations, and this
shows that he is reminiscing over
the days of the DDR, as the room
and themselves are dressed as
they used to be, and acting the
same as they would have in the
DDR
...
His character would be
particularly relatable amongst
older viewers who had also lived
through the same thing
...
Herr Ganske
appears and reads the situation
as indicative of high
unemployment and degradation
of the East German people
Christiane's old boss at the
school, Klapprath

The scene where Klapprath's
alcoholism is evident when Alex
goes to pick him up for his
mother's birthday juxtaposes his
outrage and collapse in the
darkness of the apartment with
the brighter and harshly lit cutscene to Alex giving Klapprath a
forced shower/hair wash,
showing his regression into a
more childlike and dependant
state
the staging and setting of
Klapprath's apartment is also
indicative
...

He is fond of Christiane but also
hints that she was too much of a
reformist for the school 'zu
idealitistich'
Klapprath's presence at
Christiane's funeral shows that he
held her in high esteem and in
some ways wants to cling on to
the communist past

As with most younger people,

accidentally walks in on Ariane
and Rainer dancing exotically in
their bedroom has a comic and
slightly voyeuristic feel
...

Alex's narration of having her
first experience of "economic
work experience", when she
actually gets a job at Burger King,
shows her easy assimilation into
the new capitalist society
alongside the infiltration of
eastern Germany by large
business interests

Alex Kerner

the scene where she holds up her
old clothes on herself and
comments on how rubbish it
looked is a metaphor for the
disappointment of the DDR in
general, and the fact that her
daughter, Paula, does not
understand represents the
adaptability and ignorance of the
young

...
This visually juxtaposes
the supposed communist ideals
of community and hard work
against Alex's relaxed attitude
and youthful impertinence
...

Her job at Burger King shows her
as benefitting in some way from
the influx of capitalism and the
availability of new low-paid jobs in
the struggling economy of former
East Germany
...
This suggests that she
was eager to start anew and make
use of the new opportunities of
society
...


At the start of the film, Alex's
attitudes towards the DDR
government are shown as
somewhat ambivalent
...

Like his sister, Alex quickly adjusts
to the westernisation of East
Berlin, getting a job in a company
selling TV satellite dishes door-todoor, something which would
never have happened in the East
...
Towards the end of
the film, Alex narrates that the
DDR he has built for his mother
after her coma looked
increasingly like the one he
would have wished for himself reformist, open and fair
...
The music and
lights are disorientating and
exhilarating - much like the
experience of living in Berlin at
the time, and the half-ruined
building represents their
destroyed society
...
Their
friendship signifies the only
superficial differences between
East and West, and represents the
universality of human nature and
ability to relate to one another
...
His lies
often come out before he has
been able to rationalise them,
which lead to him going to greater
and greater lengths to enable his
mother to live in ignorance
...


The scene where Alex visits a sex
shop in the West for the first
time represents the indulgence
and arguable sinfulness of
western society- yet Alex is
drawn to it
...


Christiane

The scene where Christiane
leaves the house for the first
time and the Lenin statue is being
taken away can be seen as the
'title scene' of the film, and uses
the most filmic devices of how
Western culture is jarring and
completely alien to Christiane,
and also the persistence of her
''Mauer im Kopf''

Out of all the characters in the
film, Christiane was always the
most committed communist
...


The graffiti in the lift of swastikas
and genitals shows the new
irreverence of youth culture, and
is shocking towards Christiane
because it would have been
highly unlikely to happen had it
still been East Germany- the
perpetrators would have been
scared of the consequences
The part where Christiane walks
outside and is immediately
confronted with western-looking
men with long hair and colourful
shirts is also telling
...
The pink fluffy lampshade
placed next to her as she sits
down is jarring and indicative of
the frivolity and self-indulgence
of Western culture
The huge advertisements for
consumer products such as bras
are in frame behind Christiane as
she notices the Lenin statue
being carried by a helicopter
...

Christiane's surprise at the taking
away of the Lenin statue is made
clear
...


Christiane believed in the
humanitarian and communityorientated ideals of the socialist
state, yet was either ignorant of or
in denial towards its darker and
more repressive characteristics
...




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