by Eleanor Mannikka
synopsis
Die Wunderbaren Jahre is a routine political drama with a crusading veneer about life in East Germany from the perspective of a writer who left in protest. The film is based on the autobiographical book by director Rainer Kunze, and the story begins as tanks roll into Prague in the spring of 1968. Kunze and his family were there at the time because he was at work translating from Czech into German. Next, the teen-age daughter in the family is having a hard time in school because she is not doing so well in her communist youth group -- and after a friend of hers is ruined because he does even worse, the family rethinks their desire to stay in East Germany.
