Not One Less, China

Zhang Yimou’s Not One Less is an unentertaining film concerned with the economic, social, and moral status of China. In the film, the main character, Wei, comes to a remote village as a thirteen-year-old substitute teacher, working towards gaining as much money (50-60 Yuan) as possible. When she takes over for the old teacher, she is promised an extra ten Yuan if everybody still remains when he returns. Of course, two students promptly leave for different reasons, and the rest of the story centers on Wei’s quest to return Zhang Huike to the village.

This part of the plot concerning Wei’s quest, highlights the moral, social, and economic differences between urban and rural life in China. One such criticism comes in the form of the manner in which Wei is treated as a character and portrayed in the film. Wei lives on the street and in the bus station (without visible anguish for these actions) while in the city. She is often shown alone, and being treated as just another person. While in the village, though, Wei is almost always surrounded by people, and is treated warmly, however cold she treats other people. From these two different depictions, comes the commentary on moral, social, and economic differences. The city, the symbol of modernity, can almost be seen as another character in the story, perhaps the true antagonist. The village, though, represents a refuge for Wei in the context of the film. Modernity is seen in a negative light in this film, while the country life is seen more positively.

Not One Less, although not particularly entertaining, does show this global theme. This theme can be found in many conservative texts across film, literature, and other art. Due to that, this film is a global one, just not one that has particularly global appeal.

Swades, India

Swades, a film about Indian traditions, cultures, and heritage in the face globalization revolves around the main character, Mohan’s, realization of his own history. In this film by Ashutosh Gowariker, Mohan, a NASA engineer, returns to India to locate his beloved Kaveriamma, who was his nanny and like a mother to him. In the process he meets an old childhood friend, Gita (jokingly referred to as Gitli), and an assortment of other characters from the remote village of Charanpur. As the film progresses, Mohan becomes more and more engaged in village life, helping to construct infrastructure as well as influence village politics, but still in continual communication with the West (often asking for more time off). By the end of the film, the happy ending the audience has been waiting for comes, and Mohan returns to India to become part of the culture he left behind.

The central theme in the film is that of returning to one’s heritage, since no matter where somebody moves, they are born with some notion of a cultural background. The film does not hide this theme behind vague symbolism or excessive special effects. Rather, the film tends to feature this film prominently by Mohan’s transformation as well as the behavior of all the characters’ around him, who are stubborn to Mohan’s suggestions. In the end, there is compromise as somewhat of a “melting pot” (ironic for a film that mildly criticizes America) between Mohan’s technology and progressivism and the slow, traditional life of the village combine.

Swades aptly presents its message without trying to hide it in vague cultural references or heavy literary techniques. Rather, the simplicity of the film makes it a more enjoyable viewing experience, and the message a universal one that people can adapt for their own lives.

Good Bye Lenin: Ostalgie and Globalization

Germany’s reunification in 1990 created a triumphant return to a single nation, however it also created a crisis of national identity for the citizens of eastern Germany. These people were instantly cast into a new society and forced to follow new economic, moral, and political codes to survive. Wolfgang Becker’s Good Bye Lenin presents this crisis of national identity in the face of reunification, commercialization, and rapid globalization by employing the popular post-wall social movement of Ostalgie: an East German influenced microcosm of nostalgia. This use of Ostalgie combined with the poignant images of the effects of globalization and cultural conquest allow Good Bye Lenin to acutely problematize the national identity crisis that befell the East German citizens following the destruction of the wall.

Good Bye Lenin draws much of its intellectual significance from the Ostalgie movement. This movement, which derives its name from the German “ost” for east and “nostalgie” for nostalgia, centers “around the proliferation of cultural artifacts such as movies …TV shows…[and] the return of the East German products and objects of consumption” (Jozwiak and Mermann 783). It arose because of the rapid westernization and modernization that occurred in East Germany soon after the country was reunited and the term “German culture” became ill defined as a general term for the entire country. German culture, to the global community, mostly meant West German culture. East Germans had their culture and its attached nationality violated. To worsen this offense many East German factories stopped producing their goods because they were out-produced and out-priced by the long-time capitalist (West German) opponents in the new nation. In effect, East Germans were reincorporated into a new country and a new culture, one that wanted to exclude and possibly ignore their communist legacy. Ostalgie was the countercultural movement to this violation, and was adopted by both former East Germans as well as many West Germans in an attempt to open a discourse on this bleak part of history instead of ignoring it. It offered a return to the past way of life in the 1960s and 1970s and worked as a “psycho-social [expression] of melancholy caused by prolonged absence” (Jozwiak and Mermann 783). Good Bye Lenin “displays prominently many of the products and lifestyles popular among Ostalgie enthusiasts,” including clothes, food, and other parts of material and visual culture (Cook 207). By doing so, it created not only a full German appreciation (and to some extent even an adoption) of Ostalgie, but due to its international appeal, created a global awareness of the issues that faced the people of former East Germany from economic to social and political issues.

The film allegorically recounts the political issues that faced the German Democratic Republic (GDR or East Germany), early in the film. Alex (the main character), his mother Christiane, and his sister Ariane are abandoned by Alex’s father, who defects to West Germany in seeking a better life. Christiane is interrogated by state officials as to why her husband defected and as a result of the entire situation, suffers a mental breakdown where she is separated from her children for six months and during which she contemplates suicide (although she later reveals that Alex’s daily visits prevented her from actually committing suicide) while simultaneously becoming an ardent supporter of the Socialist Unity Party of Germany. In this allegory, the adolescent Alex serves to represent the “alternative community that formed outside of public life in the GDR,” whereas Christiane represents the mass body of people in the fledgling GDR that were disoriented by the sudden shift of ideals and the loss of a strong uniting force, the father (Cook 208). Through this allegory, the GDR is characterized as a broken family unit, something that is not strongly reflected in Ostalgie. As such, Good Bye Lenin cannot fully be read as a text of pure Ostalgie. While Christiane’s back-story is extremely significant in terms of allegorical analysis, Christiane’s main purpose is not as much figurative, as it is a method for one of the main themes concerning the GDR and Ostalgie to appear.

Although portions of the story are out of line with Ostalgie, the main premise of the story serves as a description and critique of the Ostalgie movement. Christiane became an ardent supporter and contributor to the communist GDR. Alex, over the course of years, became increasingly disenchanted with the same issues. Due to these feelings Alex chooses to protest the wall. While the police intervene (and Alex is subsequently arrested), Christiane has a heart attack and slips into a coma that lasts through the reunification of Germany. In her weakened state, however, she cannot handle excitement, and, therefore, could not handle the news that the nation and government she so ardently backed was gone. As such, Alex chooses to recreate a miniature version of the GDR to prevent Christiane from knowing what has happened and, as a result, prevent her death. This plot aptly shows the largest critique of Ostalgie as being “an impossible desire to retain the past” (Hillman 225). The film’s themes and content, though, are “firmly rooted in the Ostalgie wave” according to Roger Cook (40). Though these ideas superficially conflict, they actually represent the same idea. The movement and the film are about maintaining a past culture, and in many ways Christiane embodies this past culture. The death of the GDR’s culture is paralleled by Christiane’s death at the end of the film; however, Alex’s final lines about always remembering his mother as well as his ironic association of her with his fatherland, the GDR, mirrors this impossible desire. Through this situation a strong association with the nostalgia of a former nation becomes apparent, but, simultaneously, the permanence of death for both Christiane and the GDR show the futility of the movement. Therefore, the film’s slightly positive interpretation of Ostalgie, is primarily seen in the Mother-Son dynamics of the plot. With this marginally positive view of Ostalgie, the film actively participates in the critical dialogues of Ostalgie, including the discussion of socialism in the face of a rapidly globalizing and westernizing nation.

The economics of the GDR are portrayed at different times in different ways through the economics of the GDR prior to the break-up of the wall and the globalization of this economy and culture thereafter. Christiane’s birthday, one of the more poignant scenes in the movie, shows the real life economic effects of the reuniting of Germany. During this scene a Coca-Cola banner is unfurled down the side of a building that overlooks her bedroom. This scene is analogous to the unfurling of a communist flag (in the same shade of red) near the beginning of the movie. The Coca-Cola banner is an unmistakable symbol of a global, capitalist, western country. This symbol overtly implies the “western colonization of East German values” (Cook 40). More important than this, though, is Alex’s negative response to the event, which threatened his mother’s life (and through her symbolic purpose, the GDR’s life). The Coca-Cola banner, though, is just one part of “the powerful tide of Westernization forces” that face Alex (Kapczynski 82). Many of the companies that Christiane knew, loved, and relied upon disappeared, with a special focus placed upon food items like Globus green peas, Mocha-Fix Gold Kaffee, and Spreewaldgurken (pickles). Food represents an integral part of any culture, and the disappearance of these items reflects the disappearance of the East German culture due to rapid globalization. The ideas presented by the emphasis on these items supports the notion of an East German culture that had evolved beyond just socialism and communism to a thriving, unique cultural identity. As the culture fades, Alex has to go to greater and greater lengths to preserve the illusion he has created. This illusionary aspect is, perhaps, the most important aspect of the movie. It seems to speak that no matter what attempt is made to preserve a native culture, once it has been globalized (or in this specific instance, Westernized), this culture is just an illusion-- part of a new, less diverse, and vaporous cultural identity.

Good Bye Lenin shows the effects that globalization has had on East Germany. Not only was the GDR lost to the capitalist influence of globalization, but the culture as well, becoming an effective paradigm of occidental society. This transition created a national identity crisis, and while many of these crises disappear under the pressure of global forces, Ostalgie prevented the immediate evaporation and opened an important cultural dialogue on the situation. Through this dialogue and through critical films like Good Bye Lenin that speak through in the dialogue, it is apparent that although a culture can dissolve, it can never fully dissociate. Culture will remain-- whether as a vague idea of the past or a concrete fact of the present.

Works Cited

Cook, Roger F. “Good Bye Lenin!: Free-Market Nostalgia for Socialist Consumerism.” Seminar -- A Journal of Germanic Studies 43.2 (2007): 206-219.

---. “Recharting the Skies above Berlin.” German Politics & Society 23.1 (2005): 39-57.

Hillman, Roger. “Goodbye Lenin (2003): History in the Subjunctive.” Rethinking History 10.2 (2006): 221-237.

Jozwiak, Joseph F. and Elisabeth Mermann. “ ‘The Wall in our Minds?’ Colonization, Integration, and Nostalgia.” Journal of Popular Culture 39.5 (2006): 780-795.

Kapczynski, Jennifer M. “Negotiating Nostalgia: The GDR Past in Berlin Is in Germany and Good Bye, Lenin!” Germanic Review 82.1 (2007): 78-100.

No Man's Land, Bosnia

No Man’s Land, a film by Danis Tanovic, shows the Balkan conflict in a different light from movies like Underground. While both sides, Serbian and Balkan, are portrayed in their most violent states, there appears a much larger, imposing critique of the global community’s involvement in the conflict.

The film critiques how the global community responded to and treated the participants of the Balkan conflict. The soldiers, Nino (Serbian), Ciki (Bosnian), and Cera (Bosnian), are stuck in a trench together, and nothing can be done by global forces but look into the trench, see the people fighting, and occasionally try to preserve a non-existent peace. From these actions, the global community is portrayed as being above the soldiers in the conflict. This idea is further reinforced by camera angles, where the members of the UNPROFOR and the global news media are portrayed as either looking down upon the trench or being looked up to from the trench.

A more significant and more negatively critical portrayal comes from Cera’s predicament. He is trapped on a mine that will ultimately (we presume) lead to his demise. The first critique comes from the creation of such an inhumane weapon as this. It is foreign made (in the EU), which suggests that members of the European Union cannot be totally absolved of the conflict in the Balkans. Furthering this involvement, though, is the UN’s inability to help resolve Cera’s situation and their hiding of the real magnitude of it. They cannot defuse their own mine, and because of this ineptitude and lack of foresight, they choose to hide their shame by evacuating a false body, while leaving the real person in the trench to die. Despite Cera’s nationality, he embodies the innocent people of the Balkan region who the outside world first allowed to be put into a compromising position, later could not help solve it, and ultimately lead to their death.

No Man’s Land, through these portrayals takes a very local, personal conflict, and reinforces the global involvement that did nothing to help the situation.