The fall of the Berlin Wall and the dissolution of the evil Soviet empire are generally perceived as grand, distant events that altered history on a global scale. Lost in the big-picture news stories are the individual lives that are personally effected by the successes of advancing democracy. Good Bye, Lenin! (2003) is a bitter, sweet, humorous, and sad tale of one dutiful son and his invalid mother as they cope with the new realities that are revealed when an Iron Curtain is suddenly torn and swept aside. The boy fears that the shock of their regime having changed while his mother lay in a coma will put her back into unconsciousness or worse. So, for her benefit, he creates a small, personal universe where the boundaries are still up.