The Lives of Others - 2007

Directed By: Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck
Starring: Martina Gedeck, Ulrich Muhe, Sebastian Koch, Ulrich Tukur, Thomas Thieme, Has-Uwe Bauer, Volkmar Kleinert, Matthias Brenner,
Released 20/04/2007

German cinema seems to be going through a resurgence of form of late. The new Millennium has given us Oliver Hirschbiegel’s Das Experiment (2001) and Downfall (2004), Marc Rothemund gave us Sophie Scholl in 2005 Wolfgang Becker’s Goodbye Lenin (2003) to just a few examples of the burgeoning talent emerging from Germany. Interestingly as well much of German cinema and its brilliance has derived from it’s desire the look to its dark past. First the Nazi’s came under German artistic examination and now with Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck’s sublime and superb debut, The Lives of Others, we finally have a film about the Stasi, the East German state security which operated from 1950 until the fall of the Berlin Wall, at which point it was renamed the Office of National Security.

The Live of Others was the recipient of this year’s Best Foreign Language Film piping Guillermo Del Toro’s masterpiece Pan’s Labyrinth to the award. On this evidence the film deserved it but only just. Donnersmarck has created such a subtle, involving and cinematically imperious film that it sticks in your mind both for the engaging and emotional poignant story as well as the cinematic exuberance with which it is directed. The language of cinema employed in the film is so refreshing complete, so unexpectedly focused on telling the story that not once does this thriller ever fall into parody or cliché as it unravels the lives of it characters.

Unlike another recent film about interrogation and surveillance, The Good Shepherd, starring Matt Damon, this film is exhilarating precisely because it tells the story in an incredibly human way. The plight of the characters is outlined not only concisely but often with humour and wit unexpected in a film about a socialist regime which used over 100,000 agents and 200,000 informants to spy on it citizens. The centres of the lives of Georg Dreyman (Sebastian Koch), a dramatist living and working in East Germany, his long time partner Christa (Martina Gedeck) and Hauptmann Gerd Wiesler (Ulrich Muhe), the Stasi agent handed the responsibility of watching them. As their lives unveil on screen we see that despite suspicions and affiliations with anti-socialist artists, whom have been “blacklisted” but the GDR, Dreyman is loyal to the Socialist government and so is his wife. In studying them and observing there lives, the stoic and emotionless Wiesler, a stunning turn in one of the performances of the year by Muhe, who manages to convey every emotion with crystal clarity despite apparently never changing his appearance or expression, Wiesler soon begins to empathise with his subjects.

As the plot unfolds we begin to not only want these characters to start rebelling against the system but also feat what will happen as we have already been witness to such interrogations. The dilemma is a strong one. Dreyman fears for his freedom and the freedom of his partner, the beautiful and beguiling Christa, played with absolute conviction by Martina Gebeck, if he speaks out against the GDR, as some of his associates do and have. We see in blacklisted theatre director Jerska who hasn’t worked for years what faces Dreyman if he chooses to speak out. His friends are much more vocal and Dreyman finds himself stuck between his artistic and political integrity and protecting himself and Christa. The life he lives is privileged but not without its problems. Dreyman is a writer who is only given the freedom to right by the GDR. The same can be said for Christa, who attracts the unwelcome attention of Stasi leader, Minister Hempf. And in this way the film explores the notion of freedom as paralleled with that of West Germany.

As the film draws towards it climax, we begin to see how the Stasi pressure those in society to become informants, and realise that those who are apparently free from suspicion and interrogation are used to exploit others raising questions about the freedom of anybody. Even the Stasi employees themselves are under suspicion and Wiesler has learnt the only way to survive is to be stoic and reserve all opinions and thoughts to himself. When the film act draws in the corruption and exploitation of power are held up to scrutiny as jealousy and desire to advance and gain more power are used as authentic methods to dig out potential dissidents.

For all its harrowing affects on the characters though the film leaves the audience with such a beautifully poignant ending that few films are ever really equalled. It’s a credit to the director that this is a debut, as few are ever so cinematically breathtaking with subtly nuanced performances and an emotional maturity which is irresistibly engaging.

It’s been too long for there not to have been a film on this subject with such clarity of vision and cinematic brilliance that its not surprising that a film which is as much about cinema’s voyeuristic nature as the surveillance and loss of civil liberties which are as much an issue of our time as they were in East Germany following the war. A thought provoking, engaging and brilliant masterpiece of modern German cinema.