The Lives of Others
Das Leben der Anderen
This film won the 2006 Oscar for Best Foreign Film, beating heir apparent Pan’s Labyrinth. It is visually and narratively much more conventional (and non-violent) than that film, and only as political as is required for the plot. It takes place in East Germany in 1984, about 5 years before the Berlin Wall fell. While this is first and foremost a movie about people and reactions to people and art and life and passion, the story could not exist without that totalitarian/authoritarian setting. It’s the sort of movie you and and absorb, but which settles slowly into your skin before you can appreciate all the depth.
I don’t want to give too much of the plot away, but I hope to pique your interest so you will see this excellent film. Hauptmann Wiesler (played by Ulrich Mühe) is a skilled and jaded tool of the Stasi, or state police. He is assigned to surveil the home of playwright George Dreyman (Sebastian Koch) for reasons only sketchily tied to state interests. Is he subversive, or is his girlfriend, beautiful actress Christa-Marie Sieland (Martina Gedeck) too good for him?
For those of you, like myself, who were raised in a country free of East Germany’s degree of censorship and thought-policing, it was sometimes disorienting for simple comments to suddenly be charged with danger and treason. I had trouble putting myself in their shoes, trouble comprehending what they were saying that was so objectionable. One of my companions took a class in college on East Germany, and he confirmed to us that the film covered all the bases of what was happening for the average citizen then (and after). The Stasi’s crippling inefficiency and hypocritical self-righteousness is comedic when it’s not downright terrifying.
The hubris of these arbiters of morality and patriotism creates an interesting tension before all the dramatic ironies. Many characters are unaware of what we the audience know, and the layers of deceptions are delicious to explore. Wiesler has his own secrets, his own needs – his ascetic existence is enlivened by these suspected criminals, but his career, nay his persona, is defined by crushing any sparks of life in his country. Mühe’s performance, while inexpressive (secretive) in demeanor, is as layered and nuanced as his character’s motives. He and his ilk are described by one character as “grey men,” and little could be so apt. the men like Wiesler who really believe in the conformist, mild-spoken, artless ideal they protect, these men are truly grey to the soul. The higher level Party officials (the slimy minister in particular) embody the hypocrisy of the Party’s motive, which is to retain an elite power class of privileged few through exploiting socialist ideals and terrorizing their people. Even though our story is concerned with one investigation in one household, it is a brilliant and emotionally complex indictment of a whole 41 year failed system.
All the performances are great, but Mühe’s nearly nonvocal one stands out in particular. With his warm eyes in his craggy, still face, he’s like a Kevin Spacey without a secret – even when he has a secret. Gedeck begins almost as just a lovely accessory and then blooms into the story’s lynchpin, her body’s expressiveness doing all her talking for her. My analysis here is clumsy and ill-informed, for I have not had proper time to digest it. Unlike Pan’s Labyrinth, I feel I would like to visit this movie again and tease out more from it. I hope you feel the same. Go see it if you have the chance.
MPAA Rating R-sexuality, nudity
Release date 2/9/07 (wide)
Time in minutes 137
Director Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck
Studio Sony Pictures Classics
