Liebe Mauer

I haven't posted anything in a while, but this is too much of a nuisance to let it slip. Made with tax money scraped from half a dozen public institutions, soon to be force-fed to the fee-ridden audience of national public television, and no doubt eventually to be screened in schools, this soap opera, about the last days of East Berlin, is a complete waste of time and money. The GDR is portrayed as a quirky theme park run by clueless communist goons. Each and every character is given up to ridicule. "Beloved Berlin Wall" fails both as a period piece and as a love story. Small surprise the writer-director's previous experience is in toddler fodder like "My Brother is a Dog" or "Rudy, the Racing Pig". The leggy lead was the only thing that kept me from walking out. To make things worse, the theatrical cut is at least half an hour too long. While that's easy to fix, the movie itself is beyond salvation. When the closing credits finally roll, it's as big a relief as the Iron Curtain coming down.