Lives of Others
Apr. 29th, 2007 11:46 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dangermousieJust returned from watching Lives of Others (Das Leben der Anderen).
It was amazing. I don't really have words to describe it. It's like to go on my Top 10 favorite movies list (there is a German movie there already, Wings of Desire). I wish I could meta but I am too overwhelmed. I was literally shaking by the end.
Synopsis:
Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck's movie debut focuses on the horrifying, sometimes unintentionally funny system of observation in the former East Germany. In the early 1980s, the successful dramatist Georg Dreyman and his longtime companion Christa-Maria Sieland, a popular actress, are big intellectual stars in the socialist state, although they secretly don't always think loyal to the party line. One day, the Minister of Culture becomes interested in Christa, so the secret service agent Wiesler is instructed to observe and sound out the couple, but their life fascinates him more and more...
It made me think of what a Remarque novel would have been like, if it was written about the 80s and filmed.
Because this movie deals with recent German history, some German comments about it get sidetracked into minute historical discussions. Forget them; Das Leben der Anderen is an outstanding movie that should be seen everywhere.
The former East Germany, a relatively small country of 16 million people, was controlled by the most sophisticated, cunning, and thorough secret police the world has ever seen, the East German Ministerium für Staatsicherheit, or "Stasi." The Stasi had about 90,000 employees -- a staggering number for such a small population -- but even more importantly, recruited a network of hundreds of thousands of "unofficial employees," who submitted secret reports on their co-workers, bosses, friends, neighbors, and even family members. Some did so voluntarily, but many were bribed or blackmailed into collaboration.
Das Leben der Anderen, ("The Life of Others") German director Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck's debut, builds this painful legacy into a fascinating, moving film. In its moral seriousness, artistic refinement, and depth, Das Leben der Anderen simply towers over other recent German movies, and urgently deserves a wide international release. The fulcrum of the movie (but probably not its most important character) is Georg Dreyman, an up-and-coming East German playwright in his late 30s. Played by the square-jawed Sebastian Koch, Dreyman is an (apparently) convinced socialist who's made his peace with the regime. His plays are either ideologically neutral or acceptable, and he's even received State honors.
Although he is a collaborator, he is also a Mensch. He uses his ideological "cleanliness" to intervene on behalf of dissidents such as his journalist friend Paul Hauser (Hans-Uwe Bauer). These unfortunates must contend with every humiliation a totalitarian state can invent: their apartments are bugged, friends and family are recruited to inform on them, and chances to publish or perform can be extinguished by one stray comment from a Central Committee member. The most recalcitrant can be kicked out of the country and stripped of their citizenship, like the singer songwriter Wolf Biermann.
Dreyman lives in a shabby-genteel, book-filled apartment with his girlfriend Christa-Maria Sieland (Martina Gedeck), a renowned actress who often appears in his plays. At the beginning of the movie, Dreyman himself comes under the regime's suspicion, for reasons that become clear only later. The fearful machinery of the Stasi rumbles to life: his movements are recorded, and his apartment bugged. The Stasi had bugging down to a science: a team of meticulously-trained agents swoop into your apartment when you're not there, install miniscule, undetectable listening devices in every single room -- including the bathroom -- and vanish in less than an hour, leaving no trace. Agents set up an secret electronic command post nearby, keeping a written record of every joke, argument, or lovemaking session.
The "operative process" against Dreyman is overseen by Stasi captain Gerd Wiesler, played by Ulrich Mühe, an actor from the former East who was himself once in the Stasi's cross-hairs. Captain Wiesler starts the film as a colorless, icy, tight-lipped professional who shows no mercy in fighting the "enemies of socialism": if he needs to interrogate a suspect for 10 hours without sleep to get a confession, he will do so -- and then place the seat-cover the suspect sat on in a vacuum jar in case the miscreant should later need to be tracked by bloodhounds. At night, Captain Wiesler returns to his tiny apartment in an grubby, anonymous high-rise. He settles himself among his inexpressibly drab furniture, eats a meal squeezed out of a plastic tube while watching reports about agricultural production, and then goes to bed alone.
As Captain Wiesler listens to Dreyman and his girlfriend he begins to like them, or perhaps envy the richness and depth of their lives in comparison with his own. Perhaps he also begins to wonder why a stranger should have the right to become privy to Dreyman's most intimate secrets: his occasional impotence, his girlfriend's infidelities, his artistic crises. At the same time, though, Wiesler is under pressure: a Central Committee official has made it clear to Wiesler and his toadying supervisor Lieutenant Colonel Grubitz (Ulrich Tukur), that Dreyman has to go down.
I won't discuss more plot details, as there are unexpected twists. Each of the main characters is drawn deeper into the conflict between Dreyman and the State, and each is torqued by loyalty conflicts that intensify as the pressure increases. The cast is outstanding. Sebastian Koch finds the right combination of poetic detachment and watchful sophistication for Dreyman. Martina Gedeck, as his girlfriend, has the most challenging role, since she's buffeted from all sides: by her suspicious partner, by Stasi agents trying to turn her, and by a lecherous Culture Minister. Ulrich Mühe plays the Stasi agent's transformation with reserve, only hinting at the stages in his character's secret, but decisive, change of heart.
Director von Donnersmarck, a blue-blooded West German, has re-created the gray, drained look of the former East, and the nature of Stasi intimidation, with a fidelity that has earned the praise of East Germans. His pacing is relaxed, but doesn't drag; although there are a few longueurs, most scenes unfold at just the right pace, and there are several great set-pieces. One is a bone-rattling episode in the Stasi canteen in which a young recruit is caught telling a joke about East German premier Erich Honecker. Another is the penultimate scene, a masterstroke in which Dreyman gains access to his massive Stasi file, while reading it, suddenly understands episodes of his own life which had never made sense to him before. The ending is perfectly judged; bittersweet and moving without swelling strings or teary confessions.
It was amazing. I don't really have words to describe it. It's like to go on my Top 10 favorite movies list (there is a German movie there already, Wings of Desire). I wish I could meta but I am too overwhelmed. I was literally shaking by the end.
Synopsis:
Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck's movie debut focuses on the horrifying, sometimes unintentionally funny system of observation in the former East Germany. In the early 1980s, the successful dramatist Georg Dreyman and his longtime companion Christa-Maria Sieland, a popular actress, are big intellectual stars in the socialist state, although they secretly don't always think loyal to the party line. One day, the Minister of Culture becomes interested in Christa, so the secret service agent Wiesler is instructed to observe and sound out the couple, but their life fascinates him more and more...
It made me think of what a Remarque novel would have been like, if it was written about the 80s and filmed.
Because this movie deals with recent German history, some German comments about it get sidetracked into minute historical discussions. Forget them; Das Leben der Anderen is an outstanding movie that should be seen everywhere.
The former East Germany, a relatively small country of 16 million people, was controlled by the most sophisticated, cunning, and thorough secret police the world has ever seen, the East German Ministerium für Staatsicherheit, or "Stasi." The Stasi had about 90,000 employees -- a staggering number for such a small population -- but even more importantly, recruited a network of hundreds of thousands of "unofficial employees," who submitted secret reports on their co-workers, bosses, friends, neighbors, and even family members. Some did so voluntarily, but many were bribed or blackmailed into collaboration.
Das Leben der Anderen, ("The Life of Others") German director Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck's debut, builds this painful legacy into a fascinating, moving film. In its moral seriousness, artistic refinement, and depth, Das Leben der Anderen simply towers over other recent German movies, and urgently deserves a wide international release. The fulcrum of the movie (but probably not its most important character) is Georg Dreyman, an up-and-coming East German playwright in his late 30s. Played by the square-jawed Sebastian Koch, Dreyman is an (apparently) convinced socialist who's made his peace with the regime. His plays are either ideologically neutral or acceptable, and he's even received State honors.
Although he is a collaborator, he is also a Mensch. He uses his ideological "cleanliness" to intervene on behalf of dissidents such as his journalist friend Paul Hauser (Hans-Uwe Bauer). These unfortunates must contend with every humiliation a totalitarian state can invent: their apartments are bugged, friends and family are recruited to inform on them, and chances to publish or perform can be extinguished by one stray comment from a Central Committee member. The most recalcitrant can be kicked out of the country and stripped of their citizenship, like the singer songwriter Wolf Biermann.
Dreyman lives in a shabby-genteel, book-filled apartment with his girlfriend Christa-Maria Sieland (Martina Gedeck), a renowned actress who often appears in his plays. At the beginning of the movie, Dreyman himself comes under the regime's suspicion, for reasons that become clear only later. The fearful machinery of the Stasi rumbles to life: his movements are recorded, and his apartment bugged. The Stasi had bugging down to a science: a team of meticulously-trained agents swoop into your apartment when you're not there, install miniscule, undetectable listening devices in every single room -- including the bathroom -- and vanish in less than an hour, leaving no trace. Agents set up an secret electronic command post nearby, keeping a written record of every joke, argument, or lovemaking session.
The "operative process" against Dreyman is overseen by Stasi captain Gerd Wiesler, played by Ulrich Mühe, an actor from the former East who was himself once in the Stasi's cross-hairs. Captain Wiesler starts the film as a colorless, icy, tight-lipped professional who shows no mercy in fighting the "enemies of socialism": if he needs to interrogate a suspect for 10 hours without sleep to get a confession, he will do so -- and then place the seat-cover the suspect sat on in a vacuum jar in case the miscreant should later need to be tracked by bloodhounds. At night, Captain Wiesler returns to his tiny apartment in an grubby, anonymous high-rise. He settles himself among his inexpressibly drab furniture, eats a meal squeezed out of a plastic tube while watching reports about agricultural production, and then goes to bed alone.
As Captain Wiesler listens to Dreyman and his girlfriend he begins to like them, or perhaps envy the richness and depth of their lives in comparison with his own. Perhaps he also begins to wonder why a stranger should have the right to become privy to Dreyman's most intimate secrets: his occasional impotence, his girlfriend's infidelities, his artistic crises. At the same time, though, Wiesler is under pressure: a Central Committee official has made it clear to Wiesler and his toadying supervisor Lieutenant Colonel Grubitz (Ulrich Tukur), that Dreyman has to go down.
I won't discuss more plot details, as there are unexpected twists. Each of the main characters is drawn deeper into the conflict between Dreyman and the State, and each is torqued by loyalty conflicts that intensify as the pressure increases. The cast is outstanding. Sebastian Koch finds the right combination of poetic detachment and watchful sophistication for Dreyman. Martina Gedeck, as his girlfriend, has the most challenging role, since she's buffeted from all sides: by her suspicious partner, by Stasi agents trying to turn her, and by a lecherous Culture Minister. Ulrich Mühe plays the Stasi agent's transformation with reserve, only hinting at the stages in his character's secret, but decisive, change of heart.
Director von Donnersmarck, a blue-blooded West German, has re-created the gray, drained look of the former East, and the nature of Stasi intimidation, with a fidelity that has earned the praise of East Germans. His pacing is relaxed, but doesn't drag; although there are a few longueurs, most scenes unfold at just the right pace, and there are several great set-pieces. One is a bone-rattling episode in the Stasi canteen in which a young recruit is caught telling a joke about East German premier Erich Honecker. Another is the penultimate scene, a masterstroke in which Dreyman gains access to his massive Stasi file, while reading it, suddenly understands episodes of his own life which had never made sense to him before. The ending is perfectly judged; bittersweet and moving without swelling strings or teary confessions.
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no subject
Date: 2007-04-30 08:29 am (UTC)There was a lot of backclash after the Oscars but I think this movie deserved it.
no subject
Date: 2007-04-30 01:19 pm (UTC)And I don't know how close the intellectuals are to East German intellectuals, but they are certainly close to what I remember of the Soviet intelligensia...
no subject
Date: 2007-04-30 08:54 am (UTC)...I might watch it though since u so higly rever it :)
no subject
Date: 2007-04-30 01:19 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-04-30 01:01 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-04-30 01:19 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-04-30 02:50 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-05-01 02:43 am (UTC)Of course, in a normal society, this issue would not have come up at all. In a way, the movie shows that the system turns everyone either into collaborators or rebels. There is just no other way, you cannot stay detached.
Oh, my favorite scene is Wiesler listening to Dreyman play that musical piece and weeping silently.
no subject
Date: 2007-05-01 01:10 pm (UTC)Oh, my favorite scene is Wiesler listening to Dreyman play that musical piece and weeping silently.
Oh, yes, I cried at that scene! Well, that and the perfect, PERFECT ending when Dreymann has dedicated the book to Wiesler. (Also, I laughed a lot at the "play" Wiesler had made up for Dreymann - that was awesome.)
I agree very much about Christa - in a normal time and place, she WOULD be a good person, and she's completely torn up inside by the things that she has to do (it's like, this betrayal of Dreymann is a rape of her spirit parallel to the way that the sleazy minister rapes HER on a regular basis). I love that scene that you mention with her and Dreymann, but I also really love the moment when Wiesler makes Dreymann realize that Christa is sleeping with the minister, but instead of the jealous reaction that Wiesler expects, Dreymann is incredibly loving becuase he knows WHY Christa has done this. (I think this is the point at which Wiesler begins to really respect Dreymann, and that respect keeps growing through the movie.)
Err, sorry for the long, long comments - I'm now really looking forward to seeing this film AGAIN. I think I have to buy the DVD when it comes out!
no subject
Date: 2007-05-01 01:41 pm (UTC)I laughed a lot at the "play" Wiesler had made up for Dreymann - that was awesome
The perfect thing about that was that it was on the money. I've had to read many a short story/play that were like that growing up.
My parents still have fond memories of an opera they once saw entitled 'Optimistic tragedy' about a Komissar on a ship of politically unmotivated sailors whom she reforms and she eventualy dies but the struggles of the proletariat go on.
in a normal time and place, she WOULD be a good person
And that's the thing. She is at base a good person, just not cut out to be a hero, and this place doesn't let her be.
this betrayal of Dreymann is a rape of her spirit parallel to the way that the sleazy minister rapes HER on a regular basis
This is such a good point, and I never thought about that. I am struck by how free will is so elusive. Like the minister telling her in the car that if she doesn't need this, he'll stop right away, but of course that's illusion. When she does stop coming to their meeting place he does wreck her effectively.
Wiesler makes Dreymann realize that Christa is sleeping with the minister, but instead of the jealous reaction that Wiesler expects, Dreymann is incredibly loving becuase he knows WHY Christa has done this. (I think this is the point at which Wiesler begins to really respect Dreymann, and that respect keeps growing through the movie
I love that how for Wiesler, Dreymann starts almost as a test subject. It's like he turns the knob to see which way the mouse would go in the maze (though that already demonstrates more emotional involvement than he 'should' have). In a way, it's like Wiesler testing his goodness. He is totally expecting a huge scene after that (maybe because his own life is empty and so he wants others' to be a sham as well) but he doesn't get one.
In a way, his involvement continues like someone who is watching a movie/reading a book. He gets involved in the 'story' of their lives. He tries to manipulate it, he is not happy when he has to leave in the middle of an emotional scene (you can almost hear him go 'but I want to know how it ends!' :P)
I love how humanity awakens in him, slowly, like when he automatically starts asking the kid what the name of his father (the kid let slip that his Dad thinks Stasi are bad) and changes to ask what the name of his ball is.
no subject
Date: 2007-05-01 12:47 am (UTC)And we know so little after all about the RDA that it was so very interesting to see it. The actors were fantastic.
no subject
Date: 2007-05-01 02:44 am (UTC)