The Lives of Others
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Movie Reviews of The Lives of Others
Movie Review: Compelling And Compulsive Viewing., 2 Sep 2007
Summary: 5 Stars
Plot:
East Berlin, 1984. State Security begins surveillance on playwright and, on the surface at least, good socialist Georg Dreyman (Koch). But as the operation progresses, Stasi Captain Wiesler (Mühe) discovers compassion in his stony soul.
My Review:
In the early days of modern entertainment, cinema was a new and exciting method of being amused. In those days, German filmmakers were among the most pioneering, innovative and interesting, with classic silent features like Metropolis, Nosferatu and The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari. However, a lot has occurred between then and now and the country has undergone a long period of troubled history.
This compelling, if not brilliant, masterpiece is European film-making at its finest and proof of an exciting renaissance in German cinema, proof that it has never lost its touch and sense of appeal. It's apparent why The Lives Of Others is this years Oscar winner for Best Foreign Language Film. This piece focuses on the inevitable human tragedy at the heart of a paranoid political regime that treats everyone as a potential enemy. It contrasts the administrations success to the demising sight of a regime whose tight grip is in a chokehold around its own neck, forcing its best into exile or suicide. Where, a establishment thought it was venerating itself, has become obsessed and distrustful of its own members, it collapses on itself.
In the starting days of East Germany's Ministry for State Security - 'Stasi'- had many hundreds of thousands members, who for the most part where more 'informants', ordinary members of the public were coerced into spying on their friends, family and neighbours; most through blackmail, public infringement or fear of disappearing into a forgotten cell. Alternatively, like many followers, love for the Communist system, but perhaps it's not happenstance that this story begins in the 1984.
Our limelight focus is given to Georg Dreyman (Sebastian Koch), who played the German officer in dir. Paul Verhoeven's Black Book, with flowing locks and open-necked shirts has a charismatic air that encompasses him. Koch's Dreyman is the ocular opposite of Hauptmann Gerd Wiesler (Ulrich Mühe), whose impassive attitude is the archetype of emotional repression. And a beautiful actress girlfriend (Martina Gedeck). The film inclusively revolves around the characters bearable outlook on each other, which are hopelessly intricate and bound together and yet they barely share a scene. Good example of this inability of tolerance is sitting in an empty attic, listening to bugging devices.
We get a slowly building picture that sneaks into Wiesler's exterior, as his attitude to his subject moves from disapproval to envy to compassion, a man who has sacrificed his personal life and lost a large part of it, all in service of his country that he has tried so eloquently in protecting. An adhering of his homeland and what he has had to given up. It's a truly memorable performance.
Verdict:
A very personal story, set against an magnanimous backdrop of politics and power games. Enlightening. 9/10.
Movie Review: The most recent evil in Germany
Summary: 5 Stars
This is a compelling and original film. For almost two decades the plight of East Germany has been neglected in art, overshadowed by the monolitic evil prevalent in pre 1945 Germany. But in reality, the poor citizens of East Germany, partitioned off into the Russian sector after World War II, lived for years under an equally menacing and brutal dictatorship. Ok the Stazi didn't kill as many people as the Nazi's, but as George Orwell said, the most perfect dictatorship doesn't need to kill anyone. The Stazi, informers for the puppet Moscow compliant government of East Germany up until 1989, scrutinized every aspect of citizens' lives, snuffing out any individual liberty and freedom their compatriots in the West enjoyed. Life was pure, dogged, misery for so many people.
So this film by Florian Henckel von Donnersmark, his debut, is a welcome addition to the European cinema scene. It is a subtle and thrilling tale, superbly acted and scripted, which portrays the plight of Georg Dreyman, a popular playwright who is a supporter of Communism but sympathetic to dissidents which earns him the suspicion of the regime. Hardline Stazi informer, Gerd Weisler, brilliantly portrayed by Ulrih Muhe, who tragically died of stomach cancer shortly after filming, is dispached to monitor the actions of Dreyman and his actress girlfriend. In a moving story that unfolds along the premise of a saying attributed to Lenin that he couldn't appreciate Beethoven's Appasionata as it made him sympathise with the little people he needed to crush in order to instigate revolution, Weisler finds Dreyman's world of culture, art and music a warm and humane antidote to his own solitary life in a tower block where his only solace comes from visits by a elephantine thighed Stazi commissioned hooker.
After a composer friend of Dreyman commits suicide, Dreyman breaks ranks with the regime and writes a piece using a smuggled typewriter (all East German computers were registered) on suicide rates in East Germany. Suspicions amongst the police grow, and Weisler finds himself under pressure to close the net in on Dreyman and his girlfriend.
The denoument is tragic, followed by a heartfelt epilogue which takes the time frame beyond the falling of the Berlin wall, and redemption for the hardline Weisler. The closing lines are a beautiful cinematic Haiku (though only appreciated in the original German).
The film is beautifully terse with the bleakness of East Germany brought out with realistic browns and subtle greys, period details that give a good indication of the privations of life beyond the Iron curtain.
The film is not flawless - not a single joke (I know it's a serious film, but even Macbeth has the Porters' scene) and a rather overblown score slightly chip the poise and balance of the movie.
For a greater understanding of the movie's context in historical and cinematic terms, I urge people to read Timothy Garton Ash's brilliant review in the New York Review of Books, you can easily find it via google.
Movie Review: Das Leben der Anderer, one of the best movies I've seen in ages, I still can't get it out of my head....
Summary: 5 Stars
Other reviewers did a great job of telling the story of this fabulous work; simply an East German Stasi officer (Ulrich Muhe) goes through awakening and transformation while spying on a successful author (Sebastian Koch) and his actress/girlfriend (Martina Gedack).
I don't have much to enhance the retelling of the story. I found out by reading other reviews that Florien Hinkle von Donnersmarck is a first time director, which added to my fascination with this collectively successful work.
Aside from the magnificent performance by Ulrich Muhe, whose death is a big loss to cinema every where, I could not help but notice the smart selection of actors. Koch and Gedack are both attractive people who actually know how to act, which is a real change from the usual Hollywood package of beauty and scant talent. Cars, furniture, interrogation room and even monitoring equipment comfortably belonged to the era of the movie (5 years before the fall of Berlin Wall). I was amazed how similar the electrical wiring of the door bells to those in other parts of the world were totalitarian governments ruled.
Other reviewers understandably noted some unrealistic points, for instance, if Weisler/Ulrich Muhe was such a good person, he would not be a Stasi officer to start with, or how impossible it is to get away with what he did under such an oppressive regimen. I, on the other hand, think it is very understandable for somebody experienced with the system to know how to clean up after him self. The character, also, showed a loyal honest belief in the system that he swore to protect in addition to his strict and semi/robotic professionalism. Weisler's transformation did not materialize out of no where; he unlike his school friend/boss chose to be an educator(or so he thought) in the Stasi academy, He was opposed to spying on people for reasons other than protecting the system, and he also longed for love and passion (even with a prostitute). Weisler simply is every person, with good and bad qualities, who has the courage to question himself and make choices. In reality, similar totalitarian governments would not even try to dig for evidence against Dreyman, they could simply have him vanish, without explanation, to some prisons (hint, hint).
Irrespective of the director and writer's vision, I'm still saddened by how similar governments around the world pilfer good ideas and transform them into their own corrupt systems. Stasi was the East German name of a sick system that has different names in different parts of our world. If only Marx knew how his ideas would be used to help one group enslave another. If only we all understood that books and religions can be used to enslave us as well as free us.
I'm amazed by this movie, what adds to my amazement is how much this master piece has been understood and appreciated by so many people. It seems like there is still hope; I'm grateful I was introduced to this movie.
Movie Review: An outstanding film in every way
Summary: 5 Stars
While I will try to say more about the movie than one previous reviewer who cautioned viewers to not read reviews before seeing this wonderful film, I am going to avoid giving too much detail. Much of the joy in watching this film is in not knowing what is going to happen next. I will merely say in regard to the story that it was not at all what I was expecting. I won't say what I was expecting so I won't give anything away. All I will reveal is that it is set in 1984-85 in East Berlin and concerns the surveillance of a celebrated writer by the state police who has not previously been suspected of any political disloyalty.
Several things make this film stand out. The script is outstanding, with lots of twists and turns and surprises. But never do you get the sense that writer/director Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck is ever being merely clever or that his intent is to build up the viewer's expectations merely to defeat them. Rather, he is telling what is a genuinely surprising story. Just as fine as the wonderful story, however, are the several great performances, above all that of Ulrich Mühe in a magnificently understated performance as the officer in charge of the surveillance of the writer. It is a quietly powerful performance, but even though Mühe expresses only the minutest emotion throughout, we never are left wondering what he is doing or what his motives are. It is a truly masterful job of acting. Very nearly as good as Mühe is Sebastian Koch as the writer Georg Dreyman and Martina Gedeck as his actress girlfriend Christa-Maria Sieland. Though there are many other excellent performances as well, throughout I was constantly focused on three exceptional performances.
The only thing negative that I can bring myself to say about this wonderful film is that I remain somewhat baffled that it won the Academy Award for Best Foreign Film over PAN'S LABYRINTH. THE LIVES OF OTHERS is unquestionably one of the best movies made in the world in 2006, but PAN'S LABYRINTH will almost certainly be recalled as the one of the foremost films of the decade. But this has always been a category with curious results, results even more curios than those in the English language categories. CITY OF GOD was not even nominated for Best Foreign Film in the 2004 Oscars, even though it was far and away the most acclaimed film of the year. But I propose here that we take a more positive view of things. Although I believe that PAN'S LABYRINTH is the more unforgettable and moving film of the two, it is wonderful that two such remarkable films were made in the same year. At a time when American films continue to decline in quality, it was encouraging to see two foreign film that were both clearly superior to any of the five American films nominated for Best Picture. No one who loves movies should miss this great film.
Movie Review: An outstanding film in every way
Summary: 5 Stars
While I will try to say more about the movie than one previous reviewer who cautioned viewers to not read reviews before seeing this wonderful film, I am going to avoid giving too much detail. Much of the joy in watching this film is in not knowing what is going to happen next. I will merely say in regard to the story that it was not at all what I was expecting. I won't say what I was expecting so I won't give anything away. All I will reveal is that it is set in 1984-85 in East Berlin and concerns the surveillance of a celebrated writer by the state police who has not previously been suspected of any political disloyalty.
Several things make this film stand out. The script is outstanding, with lots of twists and turns and surprises. But never do you get the sense that writer/director Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck is ever being merely clever or that his intent is to build up the viewer's expectations merely to defeat them. Rather, he is telling what is a genuinely surprising story. Just as fine as the wonderful story, however, are the several great performances, above all that of Ulrich Mühe in a magnificently understated performance as the officer in charge of the surveillance of the writer. It is a quietly powerful performance, but even though Mühe expresses only the minutest emotion throughout, we never are left wondering what he is doing or what his motives are. It is a truly masterful job of acting. Very nearly as good as Mühe is Sebastian Koch as the writer Georg Dreyman and Martina Gedeck as his actress girlfriend Christa-Maria Sieland. Though there are many other excellent performances as well, throughout I was constantly focused on three exceptional performances.
The only thing negative that I can bring myself to say about this wonderful film is that I remain somewhat baffled that it won the Academy Award for Best Foreign Film over PAN'S LABYRINTH. THE LIVES OF OTHERS is unquestionably one of the best movies made in the world in 2006, but PAN'S LABYRINTH will almost certainly be recalled as the one of the foremost films of the decade. But this has always been a category with curious results, results even more curios than those in the English language categories. CITY OF GOD was not even nominated for Best Foreign Film in the 2004 Oscars, even though it was far and away the most acclaimed film of the year. But I propose here that we take a more positive view of things. Although I believe that PAN'S LABYRINTH is the more unforgettable and moving film of the two, it is wonderful that two such remarkable films were made in the same year. At a time when American films continue to decline in quality, it was encouraging to see two foreign film that were both clearly superior to any of the five American films nominated for Best Picture. No one who loves movies should miss this great film.