German Film Name: Das Leben der Anderen
Date: 2006
Film rating: 15+ (sex, limited violence)
Type: German spoken with English subtitles
Wikipedia (describes it much better than me): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Lives_of_Others
DT's Rating: 9/10
It's around 1984 - a very apt date if you've read the famous book by Orwel- and we are in Berlin-Wall-Enclosed East Germany under the communist regime of the GDR. The Stasi - the infamous secret police- are always looking for people who are against the system. In this film the story centers around the observation the stasi decide to have placed on the writer Dreyman to see if he's publishing subversive material. The man hired to have his house bugged and work as surveillance is the highly efficient and unsettlingly blank Captain Wiesler. Tension is notche dup trhoughout the film in subtle ways, and goes up several feet when we relaise that Dreyman -unawares he is being watched- actually decides to write and publish a subversive article in the West. But, Wiesler is gradually and subtly becoming more sympathetic to the artist and his girlfriend. Things are not as simple as they seem...
really I can't go into too much detail with the plot, but It's very well done. What struck me in this film was it's subtlety and the layers and threads of belivability, tension, and even sentimental emotion it weaves through it. While initially your knee jer reaction would be revulsion to a character like Wiesler, by the end of the film (and due in part to his excellent acting) I was really rooting for him. He seemed a genuinely good man.
The film was fascinating, because it places you right in the centre of the East German lifestyle. It doesn't seek to make devils out of the stasi, but it doens't romanticise them. While Wiesler turns into some what of a good guy, there is no misplaced heroics - no fuzzy happy endings. But it wasn't a bleak dystopian emo-fest by any means.
It was real. And unsettling at times, but extremly well done.
I also find that I love foreign-spoken films more and more. I much prefer hearing this sort of film - set in a specific country and spoken in the country's language - to an english language version of the same plot or a dub. Like any good film in anotehr language you soon forgot you were reading subtitles and you really got carried along with the emotion in the voice. So don't let it's nationality put you off.
In short, you really have to see it to understand and appreciate it. But if you like history or are instrested in the stasi and totalitarian regimes, if you don't mind a slow film and if you apprecaite the excellent acting and storytelling involved, I'm sure you'll love it.
I give it an enthusiastic 9/10
Quotes:
Quote:
“Writers are engineers of the soul.”
Quote:
“Hope always dies last.”
Quote:
"Can anyone who has heard this music, I mean truly heard it, really be a bad person?”
Quote:
Hauptmann Gerd Wiesler: An innocent prisoner will become more angry by the hour due to the injustice suffered. He will shout and rage. A guilty prisoner becomes more calm and quiet. Or he cries. He knows he's there for a reason. The best way to establish guilt or innocence is non-stop interrogation.
Quote:
Hauptmann Gerd Wiesler: Madam?
Christa-Maria Sieland: Go away. I want to be alone.
Hauptmann Gerd Wiesler: Madam Sieland?
Christa-Maria Sieland: Do we know each other?
Hauptmann Gerd Wiesler: You don't know me, but I know you. Many people love you for who you are.
Christa-Maria Sieland: Actors are never "who they are."
Hauptmann Gerd Wiesler: You are. I've seen you on stage. You were more who you are than you are now.
Christa-Maria Sieland: So you know what I'm like.
Hauptmann Gerd Wiesler: I'm your audience.
Christa-Maria Sieland: I have to go.
Hauptmann Gerd Wiesler: Where to?
Christa-Maria Sieland: I'm meeting an old classmate. I...
Hauptmann Gerd Wiesler: You see? Just now, you weren't being yourself.
Christa-Maria Sieland: No?
Hauptmann Gerd Wiesler: No.
Christa-Maria Sieland: So you know her well, this Christa-Maria Sieland. What do you think - would she hurt someone who loves her above all else? Would she sell herself for art?
Hauptmann Gerd Wiesler: For art? You already have art. That'd be a bad deal. You are a great artist. Don't you know that?
Christa-Maria Sieland: And you are a good man.
Christa-Maria Sieland: Go away. I want to be alone.
Hauptmann Gerd Wiesler: Madam Sieland?
Christa-Maria Sieland: Do we know each other?
Hauptmann Gerd Wiesler: You don't know me, but I know you. Many people love you for who you are.
Christa-Maria Sieland: Actors are never "who they are."
Hauptmann Gerd Wiesler: You are. I've seen you on stage. You were more who you are than you are now.
Christa-Maria Sieland: So you know what I'm like.
Hauptmann Gerd Wiesler: I'm your audience.
Christa-Maria Sieland: I have to go.
Hauptmann Gerd Wiesler: Where to?
Christa-Maria Sieland: I'm meeting an old classmate. I...
Hauptmann Gerd Wiesler: You see? Just now, you weren't being yourself.
Christa-Maria Sieland: No?
Hauptmann Gerd Wiesler: No.
Christa-Maria Sieland: So you know her well, this Christa-Maria Sieland. What do you think - would she hurt someone who loves her above all else? Would she sell herself for art?
Hauptmann Gerd Wiesler: For art? You already have art. That'd be a bad deal. You are a great artist. Don't you know that?
Christa-Maria Sieland: And you are a good man.
Quote:
Oberstleutnant Anton Grubitz:
I have to show you something: "Prison Conditions for Subversive Artists: Based on Character Profile". Pretty scientific, eh? And look at this: "Dissertation Supervisor, A. Grubitz". That's great, isn't it? I only gave him a B. They shouldn't think getting a doctorate with me is easy. But his is first-class. Did you know that there are just five types of artists? Your guy, Dreyman, is a Type 4, a "hysterical anthropocentrist." Can't bear being alone, always talking, needing friends. That type should never be brought to trial. They thrive on that. Temporary detention is the best way to deal with them. Complete isolation and no set release date. No human contact the whole time, not even with the guards. Good treatment, no harassment, no abuse, no scandals, nothing they could write about later. After 10 months, we release. Suddenly, that guy won't cause us any more trouble. Know what the best part is? Most type 4s we've processed in this way never write anything again. Or paint anything, or whatever artists do. And that without any use of force. Just like that. Kind of like a present.
I have to show you something: "Prison Conditions for Subversive Artists: Based on Character Profile". Pretty scientific, eh? And look at this: "Dissertation Supervisor, A. Grubitz". That's great, isn't it? I only gave him a B. They shouldn't think getting a doctorate with me is easy. But his is first-class. Did you know that there are just five types of artists? Your guy, Dreyman, is a Type 4, a "hysterical anthropocentrist." Can't bear being alone, always talking, needing friends. That type should never be brought to trial. They thrive on that. Temporary detention is the best way to deal with them. Complete isolation and no set release date. No human contact the whole time, not even with the guards. Good treatment, no harassment, no abuse, no scandals, nothing they could write about later. After 10 months, we release. Suddenly, that guy won't cause us any more trouble. Know what the best part is? Most type 4s we've processed in this way never write anything again. Or paint anything, or whatever artists do. And that without any use of force. Just like that. Kind of like a present.
