Performing ‘Ostalgie’: Leander Haussmann's Sonnenallee

The following article examines Leander Haußmann's hit youth comedy Sonnenallee (1999). In particular it attempts to challenge many reviewers who saw the film as nothing more than a self‐indulgent piece of ‘Ostalgie’ which trivialises the oppressive reality of life in the GDR. Instead, it argues that the film deliberately highlights the competing tensions at work within contemporary nostalgia for the East German state. On the one hand, Sonnenallee constructs ‘Ostalgie’ as a response to fears among many East Germans that the true nature of their everyday experience is being elided from the historical record. Through the use of an intricate network of Eastern and Western cultural references, the film attempts to counter this impulse by highlighting the importance of both these cultural traditions to youth in the GDR. In so doing the film translates the experience of East Germans into a cultural language that West Germans will understand, thereby ‘normalising’ this experience. On the other hand, and seeming to contradict this project, the film also challenges simplistically rose‐tinted views of the East. Consequently, the film forces the East German spectator to reflect upon, and ultimately reject, any manifestations of Ostalgie which would ostensibly call for a return to the GDR.