The Lives of Others
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Movie Reviews of The Lives of Others
Movie Review: Suspenseful, Nuanced Character Study Puts a Spotlight on a Little Known Aspect of the Cold War
Summary: 5 Stars
Five long years before the Berlin Wall fell, the Stasi, East Germany's secret police, was at the height of its infiltrative power with one in every fifty citizens cooperating with them in sniffing out any scent of political dissidence. To the Western world, it's a relatively unknown piece of Cold War history, but the Stasi's repressive force permeated all aspects of German society. First-time director and screenwriter Florian Henckel von Donnersmark makes a most auspicious debut with this mesmerizing, epic-length 2006 study of the Stasi's devastating impact on a trio of characters in pre-glasnost East Berlin.
The protagonist is Captain Gerd Wiesler, who is initially a rigid, humorless master of relentless, soul-baring interrogation techniques highly prized by the regime. He seems so utterly uncompromising that one would have expected a story to evolve that is closer in spirit to a classic Cold War espionage thriller like John LeCarre's The Spy Who Came in From the Cold. However, von Donnersmark digs deeper into the conflicted psyche of this seemingly Machiavellian character by placing him in a situation where he is constantly monitoring the activities of renowned playwright Georg Dreyman and his lover, actress Christa-Maria Sieland, in their shared apartment.
Although Dreyman has shown no signs of defying the current regime, Wiesler is ordered by his old classmate Grubitz, now the head of the Stasi's Culture Department, to put the couple under surveillance. What then evolves as the plot thickens is an unspoken bonding of spirits among Wiesler, Dreyman and Sieland as the inherent contradictions between artistic and political expression become more and more pronounced. Wiesler becomes disillusioned when he realizes that the motivation for monitoring the artistic couple is Minister Hempf's unsavory interest in Sieland. Meanwhile, Dreyman ironically does have his political consciousness raised after his blacklisted playwriting mentor kills himself. What transpires is surprising yet most fitting.
The performances are uniformly solid beginning with Ulrich Mühe's implosively searing portrayal of Wiesler. For the most part, it's a subtle turn highlighted by powerfully cathartic moments such as his response to Dreyman's playing of a piece called "Sonata for a Good Man". It does beg comparisons to Gene Hackman's Harry Caul in Francis Ford Coppola`s classic surveillance thriller, The Conversation. Sebastian Koch and Martina Gedeck are equally riveting as the conflicted Dreyman and the increasingly desperate Sieland, who haltingly faces her own dilemma of betrayal. Adding immeasurably to the fatalistic, Orwellian atmosphere that von Donnersmark creates are Gabriel Yared's evocative music (including the beautiful sonata) and Hagen Bogdanski's burnished cinematography.
The one drawback is the 137-minute length, which I found slightly excessive, especially toward the end, for the relatively intimate story being told. The filmmaker provides an informative and often enthusiastic commentary track on the 2007 DVD, though most of the major points are captured in the half-hour featurette, "Interview with Director Florian Henckel von Donnersmark". There is also a twenty-minute making-of short which includes interviews with the producers and principal cast, as well as eight deleted scenes.
Movie Review: A sad, thoughtful and redemptive film
Summary: 5 Stars
The Lives of Others (Das Leben der Anderen) is one of the best films I've seen in a long, long time. It's sad, thoughtful and redemptive, and it deals with major themes. We're in East Germany a few years before the fall of the Berlin wall. The Stasi are everywhere, watching everyone and punishing in brutal or subtle ways anyone who might be even an implied threat to the government. Their greatest tool is the system of informers that reaches everywhere, people who may relay indiscretions to the Stasi because they believe in what they are doing, but more often are compromised into doing so. People are given terrible choices to either work with the Stasi as informers or see their careers or their children's futures destroyed. One-third of the East German population is kept under Stasi surveillance. Everyone, it seems, is being watched by someone.
Georg Dreyman (Sebastian Koch) is a playwright who has made his accommodations with the regime, has won awards and has learned not to go too far. The mere fact that he is seen as reliable makes him a subject of Stasi interest. That, and because his lover, the actress Christa-Maria Sieland (Martina Gedeck), is coveted by a powerful official who wants Dreyman ruined. Hauptmann Gerd Wiesler (Ulrich Muhe), a dedicated, colorless Stasi officer, noted for his reliability and interrogation skills, is assigned the job of monitoring Dreyman. This means installing bugs in Dreyman's apartment where Dreyman lives with Sieland, setting up 24 hour monitoring, recording everything and preparing reports. Wiesler takes his share of listening in. Weisler seems to have no purpose but his dedication to the ideals of the East German system, but even he can see the corruption of those ideals. He has no friends to speak of except his boss, who knows which way the wind can shift. Dreyman, on the other hand, is a handsome man of talent who loves Christa and who has seen a close friend and talented director banned from the theater for speaking too clearly. Dreyman gradually finds the conscience he had put on hold in order to be successful. Wiesler gradually finds himself, through listening in, drawn to an awareness of the compromises and corruption he knows has seeped into a system he once believed in. Even more subtly, he finds himself drawn into the lives of Dreyman and Christa-Maria. Slowly, cautiously and anonymously, Wiesler begins to protect Dreyman. All the while we are witness to the pervasive spying on people, the pettiness, the corruption of authority, the use of subtle threats to keep people in line, the almost comic meticulousness of the Stasi and their obsessive record keeping on everyone. The conclusion of the film brings us well past the fall of the Berlin wall, when the full evidence of Stasi spying and the corruption of so many to be informers became evident. We see what happened to both Dreyman and Wiesler. I found the ending to be very, very emotional.
This was director von Donnersmarck's first feature film. He also was the writer. The acting is just as good as the film, particularly Muhe, Koch and Gedeck. Muhe has perhaps the toughest job. He has to show us this dedicated functionary first relentlessly breaking a suspect through calm, psychological questioning, then gradually, gradually letting us see Wiesler's doubts and humanity as he listens into to the lives of Dreyman and Sieland. Muhe makes us aware of Wiesler's changing outlook no faster than Weisler becomes aware of them himself. It's a subtle, strong performance.
Movie Review: A sad, thoughtful and redemptive film
Summary: 5 Stars
The Lives of Others (Das Leben der Anderen) is one of the best films I've seen in a long, long time. It's sad, thoughtful and redemptive, and it deals with major themes. We're in East Germany a few years before the fall of the Berlin wall. The Stasi are everywhere, watching everyone and punishing in brutal or subtle ways anyone who might be even an implied threat to the government. Their greatest tool is the system of informers that reaches everywhere, people who may relay indiscretions to the Stasi because they believe in what they are doing, but more often are compromised into doing so. People are given terrible choices to either work with the Stasi as informers or see their careers or their children's futures destroyed. One-third of the East German population is kept under Stasi surveillance. Everyone, it seems, is being watched by someone.
Georg Dreyman (Sebastian Koch) is a playwright who has made his accommodations with the regime, has won awards and has learned not to go too far. The mere fact that he is seen as reliable makes him a subject of Stasi interest. That, and because his lover, the actress Christa-Maria Sieland (Martina Gedeck), is coveted by a powerful official who wants Dreyman ruined. Hauptmann Gerd Wiesler (Ulrich Muhe), a dedicated, colorless Stasi officer, noted for his reliability and interrogation skills, is assigned the job of monitoring Dreyman. This means installing bugs in Dreyman's apartment where Dreyman lives with Sieland, setting up 24 hour monitoring, recording everything and preparing reports. Wiesler takes his share of listening in. Weisler seems to have no purpose but his dedication to the ideals of the East German system, but even he can see the corruption of those ideals. He has no friends to speak of except his boss, who knows which way the wind can shift. Dreyman, on the other hand, is a handsome man of talent who loves Christa and who has seen a close friend and talented director banned from the theater for speaking too clearly. Dreyman gradually finds the conscience he had put on hold in order to be successful. Wiesler gradually finds himself, through listening in, drawn to an awareness of the compromises and corruption he knows has seeped into a system he once believed in. Even more subtly, he finds himself drawn into the lives of Dreyman and Christa-Maria. Slowly, cautiously and anonymously, Wiesler begins to protect Dreyman. All the while we are witness to the pervasive spying on people, the pettiness, the corruption of authority, the use of subtle threats to keep people in line, the almost comic meticulousness of the Stasi and their obsessive record keeping on everyone. The conclusion of the film brings us well past the fall of the Berlin wall, when the full evidence of Stasi spying and the corruption of so many to be informers became evident. We see what happened to both Dreyman and Wiesler. I found the ending to be very, very emotional.
This was director von Donnersmarck's first feature film. He also was the writer. The acting is just as good as the film, particularly Muhe, Koch and Gedeck. Muhe has perhaps the toughest job. He has to show us this dedicated functionary first relentlessly breaking a suspect through calm, psychological questioning, then gradually, gradually letting us see Wiesler's doubts and humanity as he listens into to the lives of Dreyman and Sieland. Muhe makes us aware of Wiesler's changing outlook no faster than Weisler becomes aware of them himself. It's a subtle, strong performance.
Movie Review: Hearing the heretics
Summary: 5 Stars
It's all about stability - how to maintain it and how to prevent its disruption. In East Germany, from the establishment of The Wall, society found ways to lay out a given path for life. It also provided a traffic control body to keep individuals on that track. The traffic controllers were the staff and informants of the Stasi. Applying various, but effective, methods of thought control, the DDR rooted out dissent in its attempt to keep its populace thinking along "approved" lines. While we have been inundated with books and films depicting brutality, murder and intimidation applied in the East, this film shows an entirely different and far more efficient approach.
Gerd Wiesler [Muhe], a Stasi captain, is recruited to launch an investigation of playwright Georg Dreymark. There's very little to indicate Dreymark is a threat to society, but the motivation arises from elsewhere. Dreymark's girl-friend, Christa-Maria [Gedeck], is an object of the Culture Minister's passions. Wiesler undertakes the surveillance himself, and his portrayal carries this film far beyond entertainment. We have already seen his interrogation techniques - calm, dispassionate and merciless. Whatever he undertakes will be seen through thoroughly. The surveillance of Dreymark and Christa-Maria will be no different.
However, Wiesler learns of the Minister's prompting of the spying - a corruption of the socialist ideal. More significantly, Wiesler is able to discern Dreymark's humanity expressed in ways none of his previous victims have demonstrated. One of these is Dreymark's defence of his former play director Albert Jerska. Wiesler sees Dreymark confront the Minister over Jerska and learns the blacklisted director had given the playwright the score of "Sonata for a Good Man". The title becomes a key point in the development of the story. Wiesler revises his outlook as the cynicism and coldness of the regime become more apparent to him. He is increasingly aware of the need for people to be people and not automatons.
The film story builds tensions at a perfect pace, increasing with every passing scene. There are no dull nor lost moments. Directory von Donnersmarck's light touch in shifting a character we loathe at the outset of the film into a symbol of pathos at the end. While a shallow view makes Dreymark the victim/hero, it is Wiesler the interrogator and snoop who gains our sympathy. Wiesler comes into increasing conflict with his superior as the focus on Dreymark and Christa-Maria intensifies. Jerska's fate drives Dreymark to take an irrevocable step, one which threatens them all. The conclusion can only be tragic, but the result is nonetheless unexpected.
As with many of the "foreign" films recently released, the Director's Commentary version of the film is well worth taking the time for. This is von Donnersmarck's first full-length film, but there's nothing amateurish about it. He was meticulous in his portrayal of East Berlin, even painting "freedom's graffiti" over each morning prior to shooting in the street. The attention to detail is clear, even in selecting the colours allowed in any given setting. The effect is to seize the viewer from the opening scene and never provide release. The film has garnered many awards and deserves all of them. Mostly, it deserves your attention for its story and its imparted values. [stephen a. haines - Ottawa, Canada]
Movie Review: "Can anyone who has heard this music--I mean truly heard it--really be a bad person?"
Summary: 5 Stars
"The Lives of Others" is the best film I've seen in the last decade. Possibly in my life. And it's in German. This is the single most powerful, profound and complete commentary on how a government not only governs people--it determines the course of their lives, pursuits, even their thoughts--that I've ever seen. It is a treasure, and I can't even pronounce half the names of the characters properly.
I can't think of many other movies it resembles. The director mentions Dr. Zhivago in the commentary, though only as an example of a similar genre (both are historical fiction). Maybe Reds, or The Conversation. In the world of literature, fans of Milan Kundera and Thomas Mann will be kindred to this film; it strikes a similar political-social tone, asks those Big Questions, and delves into how our daily expectations (of which politics are inextricably tied) affect who we are. And, at the same time, it lays bare the lies of fascism--of any system that claims the choices we make don't matter.
Set in East Germany, the main characters (the late Ulrich Mühe, playing the spy HGW, most of all) are condemned to be human--that is, to have free will and be aware of it--in a world where State power is arbitrary, rights imagined, and the moral order absolutely equivocal. In short, to possess life when life itself is superfluous, a life that exists for the state, and never the other way around.
But this is far more than a political think-piece, it is a genuine edge-of-your-seat thriller. The plot is remarkably well-paced, and strikes a perfect balance of deliberate stillness and action-oriented coincidence. Lots of moving parts, but they work together well and, ultimately, believably.
In fact, some of the most harrowing parts of the plot, about a spy (Mühe) monitoring the lives of a writer, Georg (Sebastian Koch), and his actress girlfriend (Martina Gedeck), mirror Mühe's real life. In the terrific director's commentary, Henckel von Donnersmarck tells us that Mühe himself discovered, after the wall fell, that several of his fellow actors were spies planted by the Stasi, and his own wife (and mother of his child) was an informant against him and his friends for 6 years. I don't know how his own history affected him while filming, all I can say is, Mühe delivers one of the most layered, subtle and compelling performances I've ever seen, and his death breaks my heart because it reflects an immeasurable loss of talent, experience and humanity.
The entire cast shines: in sensual vulnerability (Gedeck's Christa is incredible), comedy (Udo), even in alarming dourness (Georg's neighbor). There are white hats (Georg and his brave friends), and black hats (the slimey Minister) that drive the action along, but it is really the people who are far from heroic, yet who have, at times, "truly heard this music" (HGW, Christa)--they are the ones who make this film so indelibly rich and fulfilling. Condemned to make impossible choices, they don't always act honorably--and you can't take your eyes off them for a second.
In addition to the superb director's commentary, the DVD includes a 30-min interview with the director, a 20-min "making of" featurette, and several deleted scenes. Subtitles can be turned off, or turned on in English, French or Spanish.