The Lives of Others (Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck, 2006)

[Antoine Doinel]

Saw this today and it was an effective, if flawed, thriller. The main problem I had with the film was that the role of the Stasi agent was such a thinly drawn character - a lonely, dull bureaucrat who even has to go so far as to hire a prostitute for sex - that the changes that eventually he makes don't resonate with the emotion that they should. Similarly simplistic, is Donnersmarck's subtext that artistic freedom is necessary fuel for the heart of a nation (or democracy). The film could've benefitted greatly from a great engagement with the regular citizens of the GDR to see how the regime affected their lives as well, instead of just focusing on one dimensionally drawn bureaucrats and artists.

That said, as a thriller, Donnersmarck knows his stuff behind the camera, and those portions of the film - particularly the opening - that handle espionage directly are great. Unfortunately, the film ends about four times (finally settling on one that is borderline corny and saccharine sweet) and runs about twenty minutes too long. A good film, that could've been much better.

[a.khan]

I saw it a couple of months ago at a local film festival. Frankly, I was expecting it to be more, erm, multi-layered…it kind of wore its simple albeit artful thriller and socio-political elements on the sleeve. Ultimately, I thought it just about manages to be something more than a finely-crafted mainstream film. An evocative and intelligent drama, lacking true ingenuity.

Interestingly, I've heard some critics emphatically compare the voyeurism in the film to Hitchcock's “Rear Window.â€

[Antoine Doinel]

Get ready for an American remake.

[HerrSchreck]

I saw this today at last and actually was pretty impressed, at least versus the usual burble. The narrative was mostly devoid of cheap shots, was maturely drawn, very well acted, the material was of the type run into the ground relentlessly (espionage) yet done in a way which made it feel utterly unique. Versus the manipulative "REIGN OVER ME" type roast fart fried douche that illuminates the bulk of our "profoundly dramatic" arthouse & domestic cinema (ever wearing it's ambition for awards & history books on their sleeves) I found this film disciplined, subtly photographed versus the jittery (or hypergooeygoo) shit that parades nowadays. And a genuinely interesting story which can function as a parallel to so many present day scenarios.. yet subtly so.

The greyness of the bureaucrat was a huge part of his motivation ("who" is this dude? His emptiness to some degree probably necessary to be affected the way he was by the (to avoid spoilers I'll say "by the lives of others".)

I quite dug this-- well done.

[HerrSchreck]

A.O. Scott actually produced a spot on, well written review. I'm reprinting it because it addressed the issue of the lead agent, whose character elicited enormous-- yet deceptively subtle-- depth to my eyes. Scott addresses this (the actor won the BEST ACTOR award in Germany, and this film, among a shit-ton of others, won the Foreign Film Oscar this year):

FILM REVIEW; A Fugue for Good German Men

By A. O. SCOTT

Published: February 9, 2007, Friday

''The Lives of Others'' is haunted by a piece of music called ''Sonata for a Good Man,'' composed for the film by Gabriel Yared and, at the same time, magically familiar to some of its characters. Like the story that surrounds it -- a suspenseful, ethically exacting drama, beautifully realized by the writer and director Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck -- Mr. Yared's piece is melancholy, elegant and complicated.

Goodness, as a subject for art, risks falling prey to piety and wishful thinking, but ''The Lives of Others,'' one of the nominees for this year's best foreign-language film Oscar, never sacrifices clarity for easy feeling. Posing a stark, difficult question -- how does a good man act in circumstances that seem to rule out the very possibility of decent behavior? -- it illuminates not only a shadowy period in recent German history, but also the moral no man's land where base impulses and high principles converge. Mr. von Donnersmarck, born in West Germany in 1973 and making his feature film debut, demonstrates astonishing visual and narrative rigor. Even more remarkably, he is able to reach back into the totalitarian past and over the Berlin Wall into the grim, brutal absurdity of the late, unlamented German Democratic Republic, and lay bare the anxious, cruel psychology of socialism as it once existed.

There are two good men in ''The Lives of Others,'' which starts in Berlin in 1984, and they are presented in counterpoint, never on screen at the same time. One, Georg Dreyman (Sebastian Koch), is a successful playwright; the other, Capt. Gerd Wiesler (Ulrich Mühe), is the Stasi officer who spies on him. Georg, tall and handsome, with a mane of brown hair and a natural grace that stops just short of arrogance, leads something of a charmed life, enjoying a measure of official favor without losing the respect of his fellow artists, who are not all as lucky, or as circumspect, as he is. He shares a roomy apartment in an old building (the kind a capitalist real estate agent would describe as ''full of character'') with his girlfriend, Christa-Maria Sieland (Martina Gedeck), a tall, lovely actress who also stars in his plays.

Wiesler, in contrast, appears at first to be a virtual caricature of the unsmiling Stalinist bureaucrat, with a touch of the old Gestapo thrown in for good measure. Wiry and bald, he lives alone in a drab, brutalist high-rise apartment building, distracting himself with state-run television (which reports on chicken farming and declares that ''the 10th Party Conference economic policy is solid'') and a quick visit from a prostitute.

He is first seen lecturing a room full of aspiring secret policemen in the techniques of interrogation, and he addresses this task and his surveillance of Georg with the proud discipline of a professional and the zeal of a true believer. (To imply that ''our humanistic system'' would persecute an innocent person, he tells one of his prisoners, is itself potentially grounds for arrest.)

It is not inaccurate to describe ''The Lives of Others'' as the story of how both men become disillusioned and hasten each other's disillusionment. But the paradoxes inherent in this story -- which are central to Mr. von Donnersmarck's brilliant exposition of the Orwellian logic of East German Communism -- are worth pausing over. It is not simply that Wiesler, the state-sanctioned, clandestine predator, develops a measure of sympathy for his quarry as he listens in on Georg's private, unguarded moments (''presumably they have intercourse,'' he types in his daily report after eavesdropping on Georg's birthday party). Surely his training would have inoculated him against this kind of reverse Stockholm syndrome.

Rather, even as Georg is driven toward actions that implicate him, for the first time, in dissident activity, Wiesler becomes convinced of Georg's essential innocence and takes steps to protect him. The plot, as it acquires the breathless momentum of a thriller, also takes on the outlines of a dark joke. The poet and the secret policeman -- both writers, in their differing fashions -- may be the only two true patriots in the whole G.D.R.; in other words, the only people who take the Republic's stated ideals at face value. But since the nation itself functions by means of the wholesale and systematic betrayal of those ideals, the only way Wiesler and Georg can express their loyalty is by committing treason.

Wiesler is at first suspicious of Georg, whose social polish and air of entitlement certainly don't seem very proletarian. But he soon discovers the real reason for his investigation. Minister Hempf (Thomas Thieme), a government official and former Stasi bigwig, is infatuated with Christa-Maria (who is unable to fend off his grotesque attentions), and he wants some dirt on his rival. Wiesler's boss, Colonel Grubitz (Ulrich Tukur) -- the closest thing Wiesler has to a friend -- is happy to advance his own career prospects by going along with the minister's wishes. Faced with such corruption and cynicism at the highest reaches of the party, what is a good man -- or, for that matter, a dutiful Communist -- to do?

There is a bracing, old-fashioned quality to Mr. von Donnersmarck's film, which supplies us with good guys to root for and villains to despise. But it also shows, with excruciating precision, the cruelty with which a totalitarian state can exploit the weakness and confusion of its citizens. And even as they are, to some extent, enacting a morality play, the actors also seem like real, vulnerable people forced into impossible choices. This is especially true of Ms. Gedeck, whose natural nobility -- her height, her carriage, the strong line of her jaw -- makes Christa-Maria's half-hidden fragility all the more poignant.

The suspense comes not only from the structure and pacing of the scenes, but also, more deeply, from the sense that even in an oppressive society, individuals are burdened with free will. You never know, from one moment to the next, what course any of the characters will choose. Mr. Mühe conveys Wiesler's curious evolution with appropriate meticulousness and reserve. It is only in retrospect that you appreciate the depth and subtlety of emotion that underlie his performance.

A terrible sadness lies at the heart of ''The Lives of Others'' -- a reckoning of lives and talents wasted by a state with no good reason to exist apart from the maintenance of its own power. But there are comic, even farcical elements as well: a dictatorship that calls itself a democratic republic is inherently ridiculous as well as malignant.

In 2007 we, of course, know in advance the punch line that history will deliver in the autumn of 1989. But the easy, complacent distance that informs much historical filmmaking is almost entirely absent from this supremely intelligent, unfailingly honest movie.

Early in the film, Minister Hempf condescendingly mocks the faith in humanity Georg expresses in his plays: ''People don't change,'' he says. And in some ways Mr. von Donnersmarck endorses the minister's point of view, even as he turns its cynicism into cause for hope. Georg and Captain Wiesler, though they occasionally waver and worry, remain true to their essential natures, and thus embody the film's deepest, most challenging paradox: people don't change, and yet the world does.

The more this film sinks in, the more it reverbs in my head, the more I feel this is a truly great film, and quite an astonishing debut film from the writer director. DOn't miss this.

[Floyd]

I went to see this with no real preconceptions about how good it would be and came out feeling like I had wasted over 2 hours. The absurd little symbolic metaphors like the neighbor putting the tie around the neck of Dreyman made me want to gag. The Kevin Spacey lookalike tearing up to the Sonata for a Good Man part made me laugh loudly at the screen really, it just felt ridiculous.

Maybe I just wasn't in the mood for this type of film, I didn't really find it to have any good qualities. It is shot rather standardly as well and in general did not hold my interest after about an hour of a meandering narrative.

[HerrSchreck]

The absurd little symbolic metaphors like the neighbor putting the tie around the neck of Dreyman made me want to gag

Of course you're perfectly entitled to digest anything & everything on your own terms. But as to the above quote: I find that interesting as I didn't register this as a metaphor for anything-- what did you see this as a metaphor for? That she put a "noose" around his neck perhaps (no spoilers here, the guy doesn't get hung)? I saw her as a guilt-free innocent bystander who had no effect on the narrative whatsoever, aside from the film's making us afraid for a moment while she's tying the tie that the StaSi dude is going to misinterpret the whispering between her & Dreymann and doom the lady and her daughter in the university.

As to the "Spacey lookalike".. ( )



tearing up over the piece of music: I couldn't disagree more strenuously as there were virtually no cheap shots in this film in terms of emotional manipulations or uses of frivolous melodramatic devices. I sensed an extraordinarily disciplined sense behind the narrative control that all moments of accelerated emotion came off genuine. If it is possible to be unexpectedly moved by a piece of music in the real world, then the scene in this film of the agent going glassy-- happens in a single shot which goes by quickly and is underemphasized-- is legitimate.

And I thought the cinematographic lack of whistles and bells an extreme breath of fresh air. The lack of compositional self-consciousness and fresh-outa-college overbearing stylizations (and handheld hell) was wonderful. The cinematography resembled the style of shooting something like THE FRENCH CONNECTION in that the shots take back seat and exist entirely to support the narrative onscreen and unselfishly maintain that discipline throughout, which is a dying art. The near unanimity of critical opinion across the board, blowing the mind of even the toughest critics (even this one... it's one of the very few truly excellent new films I've seen in the past couple years), focus on the calm visual style of this film.

I saw it at Lincoln Center, and the packed matinee house (it's been held over for a second month) of half twentysomethings, half senior citizens, burst out into spontaneous applause when it ended.

That said, again, you're entitled to your opinion obviously, and there are some critics here & there (Hoberman of the Voice is one who gave it a mixed review) who agree with you.

[Antoine Doinel]

I couldn't disagree more strenuously as there were virtually no cheap shots in this film in terms of emotional manipulations or uses of frivolous melodramatic devices. I sensed an extraordinarily disciplined sense behind the narrative control that all moments of accelerated emotion came off genuine.

While I'm not as strong in my dismissal of the film as Floyd, I did feel that while it was good, the overall film was hampered by emotional manipulation particularly in the last, and poorly handled half hour.

In particular, the whole issue with the agent buying the book and seeing it was dedicated to him was ridiculous. It was such a cheapshot in a film that otherwise played its emotions very carefully and closely.

Moreover, as I mentoined in my initial post, the director attempts to make some sort of statement regarding art and its importance to democracies but can't seem to figure out what he wants to say other than "Art good. Facism bad." The agent is painted as such a one dimensional character, and in particular his sexlessness and inability to hold a relationship I felt were cliched character traits. How much more complex and rich it would it have been if he were just an agent, who believed in what he was doing, but also had the same kind of relationships and friendships as the people he was spying on. Wouldn't it make his journey all the more meaningful?

Finally, as a film so dedicated to exploring the effect the Stasi had on the nation of East Germany, it spents very little time with ordinary citizens spending most of the running time almost exclusively with agents, politicians or artists & writers. We get some idea of the paranoia that was running high but none from the perspective of everyday citizens.

Though I can't find it now, there was an article in the Independent about a month ago in which real East Germans went back and consulted files kept on them by the Stasi that was are talked about what they saw with the paper. It was far more moving than the film was and really showed the level of insanity the government had reached.

All this said, as a thriller, the film is finely crafted but Donnersmarck has problems in crafting characters that aren't cliches and putting the dramatic elements in a framework that isn't at times painfully ordinary.

[HerrSchreck]

Most of your criticisms fall flat for me. Many of the finest films ever made are allegories with characters that are Types or compressions of social dispositions.

I find this in the proper hands an effective means to create an old fashioned yet highly disciplined narrative. Use a couple of archtypes, and run them through a highly believeable series of non-gratuitous narrative events, with a non-cheapened emotional arc.

I find very few individuals in this world. The world is filled with drab colorless souls with no strength versus those routines which life and their parents and their upbringings have dropped upon their heads that crush the spark of charisma or originality-- this in a post-cold war world. You cannot imagine the kind of repression that sort of twilight hi-security world's fear can cultivate. Very few people are large enough personalities whereby they exhibit the strength to burst past the outlines of their interior frames whereby they grab your immediate attention-- this even in todays world, never mind versus the Stasi.

I know the world of government undercovers & classified grey colorlessness of hieghtened security and the effects this has on a highly-cleared employee exposed to the interior workings of highest secrets. My first job out of high school was at the then-largest government contractor in the world (we worked on weapons systems for the military) and the security personnel as well as the engineers were exactly like the Stasi agent in this film: drab, colorless as a rule due to fear of the misinterpretation by superiors of a little extra personal color or charisma as something socially extravegant (a sin in that world).. or even social. Even as a drone we'd have it drilled into our heads thru periodic companywide security meetings to be on our guard and avoid social vulnerability. The agent in this film is very real and gorgously drawn in my view, very affecting with his bursting with the repercussions of all the repression. You just have to look for it-- it's there. In the eyes especially.

Some archtypes exist because they are tragically true. And as someone whose witnessed that world-- drab grey anonymous souls huddled in raincoats to bleak apartments carrying wonder bread & quarts of milk for an evening of masturbation & habitual loneliness-- the Stasi agent affected me deeply. And he obviously rang true for the Germans, who awarded him the equivalent of the Best Actor Oscar.

[Antoine Doinel]

You're right, many films do use archetypes within their frameworks, and often to great success, however it wasn't the fact he Donnersmarck used a "type" but that is was written to such an extreme degree. Certainly your real life experience seems to reflect that many working within these kinds of jobs are "drab" and "repressed" but did they not have families? Sex lives? Enjoy anything?

As a counterpoint, look at DeNiro's The Good Shepherd. In that film we have a similar character in that of Edward Wilson played by Matt Damon. Like the Stasi agent in this film, he is extremely reserved and quiet, yet, he has a family and film explores with great insight what effect his job has on those relationships and is much richer for it. We not only see the difficulty is succeeding at a job that requires so much difficulty but also the personal sacrifice it ultimately results in. I suppose if they made the Statsi any more human there would be charges he was made too "sympathetic", but certainly the film could've at least benefitted from a richer, more complex and ultimately more realistic drawing of this character.

While me may not agree on the archetype, I will agree that the performance by Ulrich Muhe was very good. Certainly with my feelings on the film, he elevated his character out of the one dimensional depths but as you noted, he can do remarkable things with his eyes. I look forward to seeing him on screen again.

[miless]

As a counterpoint, look at DeNiro's The Good Shepherd.

why did you have to bring that one up?
I certainly did not like that film... and did not find it better than The Lives of Others. it all comes down to taste.

[Antoine Doinel]

As a counterpoint, look at DeNiro's The Good Shepherd.

why did you have to bring that one up?
I certainly did not like that film... and did not find it better than The Lives of Others. it all comes down to taste.

If you bothered to read the rest of my post, you would see that I wasn't comparing the two films so much as their depiction of people employed within a spy agency.

[statsman]

I just saw this one. I thought it was great. I saw Wiesler from the beginning as a true believer in the revolution (remember, the most horrific crimes are often committed by those who are absolutely convinced they're doing the right thing). When he discovered the real reason for the surveillance, he was as offensed by the chief minister's actions as by the "counter-revolutionaries". Remember, Wiesler was ready to turn Dreman in for starting the article for "Der Spiegel", but stopped after meeting his superior, when he was reminded of the corruption in their enterprise.

The music moves him to appreciate these people for who they are, rather than just enemies of the state. He finally defends Dreman because he sees that the article is not a polemic, but just...truth, a recitation of facts in an order such that the listener can more easily understand the underlying truth.

[MichaelB]

Certainly your real life experience seems to reflect that many working within these kinds of jobs are "drab" and "repressed" but did they not have families? Sex lives? Enjoy anything?

But surely that's one of the main points that the film's making? East Germany wasn't just a police state but one which took an inordinate interest in its citizens' only notionally private lives - so it seemed entirely natural to me that someone who played an active and senior role in state surveillance would strip his own private life down to the barest essentials.

Not least because he was presumably all too aware of how the state often used family members and other loved ones to get at those on whatever the current blacklist happened to be - and equally aware of how quickly a notionally senior figure in a police state can fall from grace if those above him consider him expendable.

[Sloper]

Though I can't find it now, there was an article in the Independent about a month ago in which real East Germans went back and consulted files kept on them by the Stasi that was are talked about what they saw with the paper. It was far more moving than the film was and really showed the level of insanity the government had reached.

Just to mention, Ulrich Muhe (who plays the Stasi agent) did this himself, and discovered that his former girlfriend had been informing on him. When asked how he prepared for the role, he just said that he 'remembered'. Wonderful actor, a master of just being there and looking or listening. He carries this film - the rest of the cast are good, but not great I think - and it's a testament to his skill as an actor that the ending, which is sentimental, feels earned - a hard-won, and brief, emotional payoff. It's evident that this film really divides people, and I suspect that whether you find it deeply moving or dull and sentimental may depend on whether you can find something to latch onto in Muhe's extremely subtle performance. He died of cancer shortly after this film came out; he was very respected in Germany, and you may remember him as the husband in Funny Games.

The scenes in his apartment are great - apparently one of them came straight out of a poverty-stricken period in the director's own life, when he lived on nothing but rice and ketchup. (His audio commentary on the film is worth a listen.) I got the feeling the agent lived like this out of a sense of duty rather than necessity, as if it would be morally irresponsible to eat anything less dull. As he says in the canteen, 'socialism has to start somewhere'.

[knives]

Ulrich Muhe was the one part of the movie I though went above average into greatness. Did he really die? He seemed to only be in his forties. Horrible loss if so.