Ohhh the pain that nostalgia inflicts... My favorite part about this film is the portrayals of newly emerging subcultures after the unification.

I have to admit that this movie snuck up on me a little bit. During the first half of the film I thought it would be little more than a movie about a charade going on during the time of massive change in Germany. I didn't expect to see the depth of character and story that develops during the last half of the film. I especially enjoyed the commentary about the different systems of government - the old system wasn't perfect but the new one wasn't either. Seeing the lead come up with his own system was pretty interesting. I have to admit that I laughed out loud when there is a bit of role reversal near the end of the film. follow me at https://IHATEBadMovies.com or facebook IHateBadMovies

When I first watched this movie, I thought it's just a fun movie, a comedy mixed with *Eastalgia* (a German word that's a fusion of *east* and *nostalgia*) . As a west German it's of course great to learn about the GDR, which was to me always like a totally foreign country. I was still a kid in 1989 and it was not before 1989 I realized there's another Germany in the east. And like most west Germans I didn't really know who *Siegmund Jähn* or even the *Sandmännchen* was or what cultural significance they had. Watching it a second time, I think there's actually more to it. It's a time capsule of 1989/90. More a serious tragedy than a comedy. It shows the revolution, the rapid change that steamrolled East-Germans and it shows so much of what made Berlin's culture between 1990 and the early 2000's that exciting. The emergence of so many subcultures could only happen in such times. Plus, the love story is lovely. So much better than *Sonnenallee*. It's the best portray of this era in German history. I must say though, that I'm still waiting for a movie like *The Downfall* which depicts the final days of another German dictatorship. We need something like that for the final months of East-Germany.

Nostalgia for a German Democratic Republic that never existed?

I thought one of the most poignant moments in this film was when Alex and his sister try to exchange their Ostmarks for West German Marks, as his views on the East are shown to be not so simple.