Dynamic Duo Director Becker, Actor Br¸hl Rising to Top of German Cinema by Ky N. Nguyen Upon entering the Four Seasons interview suite, I see that hungry German director Wolfgang Becker and actor Daniel Br¸hl have dug into the food and wine. They have recently returned from a publicity tour to Tokyo. Becker joked, "They count all the sushi. They estimate: this guy is 6í4." He could eat so many sushi in 25 minutes because the other five minutes are taken to get down to the restaurant." Becker and Br¸hlís film "Good Bye, Lenin!" has been a huge commercial and critical success, following Beckerís award-winning "Life Is All You Get" (American Film Instituteís European Union Showcase 1997). Becker is a co-founder of the X Filme Creative Pool, whose visually flashy filmsónotably Tom Tykwerís "Run Lola Run"óhave been credited with revitalizing German cinema. Becker recalled, "When we founded X Filme, the situation for the German filmsóespecially cinema filmsówas really bad. The market share for German films was about 5 percent. It seemed like the German audience didnít like the German films at all. Neither did the rest of the world. Everybody was complaining. Some [Berlin] directors started to meet once a month. After some meetings, I got so sick about the big lament. I thought, we have to start to change thingsónot to wait for the circumstances to get better." "Good Bye, Lenin!" is set during the fall of the Berlin Wall. Becker remembered, "I thought, ëOh my God, theyíre now all coming to join us.í I was happy with two German countries at that time. Millions of East German citizens also wanted to just to reform their own country. In the beginning, it was not about reunification. It was about having a better socialist country. "The reunification stuff came half a year later, after the first disappointments [of slow economic reform] and after the first experiences with the nice stuff you can buy in the West when you have money," Becker explained. "Reunification was not the ideal option, but there isnít any ideal option. It was the better option than the other one. There was no Wall anymore, so people would leave this country [East Germany]." In 2002, Br¸hl won for Best Actor at the German Film Awards. He repeated that in 2003, including for his work in "Good Bye, Lenin!," and European Film Promotion named him the Shooting Star of German Film in 2003. Yet Becker didnít originally think of Br¸hl for the lead. As the director explained, "In the beginning, I was just looking for someone who was born and raised in East Germany, especially in East Berlin because of that typical East Berlin accent. There was nobody who convinced me." Br¸hl said, "It is not necessary to have that background to have lived in the East to play this part. The focus is on something else. It is about universal things like loving Mother. I did some research and prepared myself for this part. All the other actors are from the East. Many, many scenes Ö I just played them. There wouldnít have been any difference between an East German and West German boy. "One of the major things for me when Iím acting is intuition. I immediately feel if somethingís wrong chemistry-wise. Working with [Becker] was on a very subtle level because we rarely discuss or analyze things." "I hate analyzing scenes," noted Becker. "We just looked at each other and had a feeling," Br¸hl said. "It was unspoken, but you had an idea of what is wrong or what is right." The young actor observed, "The problem in Germany is that thereís very much a focus on theater. There is no school in which they also teach you how to act in film. I grew up with films because my father is a director working for television. As a child, I already loved filmóthe way stories are told in film, and the way actors play in film. I was very influenced by that more than theater." Br¸hl added, "[The schools] really want to build you up and form you in the way they believe is good for you. If you have had experience working, itís a problem. They know you from television or from the cinema. They want fresh meat." Ky N. Nguyen is the film reviewer for The Washington Diplomat.