The Lives of Others (2006)
(Das Leben der Anderen)
Country: GER
Technical: col/scope 138m
Director: Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck
Cast: Martina Gedeck, Ulrich Mühe, Sebastian Koch, Ulrich Tukur
Synopsis:
East Berlin in the early 80s: a Stasi interrogator and surveillance specialist assigns himself the case of a fashionable playwright and his actress girlfriend, because his hunch tells him he is too clean looking not to be suspect; he gets bureau endorsement simply because the Minister of Culture wants the girl for himself. At first undertaking the task with his customary zeal, he is first disabused, and then so drawn into the lives of the couple that, even when they do commit an infringement, he fabricates his reports to protect them.
Review:
Clinically shot, and acted with admirable precision, the film evokes in a far less lighthearted way than Goodbye, Lenin! what life was like behind the iron curtain, especially for those engaged in cultural professions. The couple are ironically doomed by the captain's very efforts to shield them (the fictitious body in the car) but the film is more about how humanity cannot be stifled, even in the most dehumanizing of systems, and the man's essential goodness will out. Unlike his superiors he was at least sincere in his motives, even when most coldly efficient at what he was doing. The film inevitably conjures memories of The Conversation, but they are in the end superficial: this is far less a technical exercise, more a shattering drama of the totalitarian state and what it does to people. (It is interesting to note that the film provoked some furore in the former GDR because not only is there no historic basis for the transformation of a Stasi employee as depicted here, not only would it have been impossible given the internal checks and balances, but there is even a climate of denial and intimidation by former Stasi members in the current East Germany, very far from South Africa's Truth and Reconciliation ethos, leading to former victims feeling that wrongs have gone unrecognised, let alone compensated, and that a film which pretends that 'all is forgiven' is an insult to those who suffered.)
(Das Leben der Anderen)
Country: GER
Technical: col/scope 138m
Director: Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck
Cast: Martina Gedeck, Ulrich Mühe, Sebastian Koch, Ulrich Tukur
Synopsis:
East Berlin in the early 80s: a Stasi interrogator and surveillance specialist assigns himself the case of a fashionable playwright and his actress girlfriend, because his hunch tells him he is too clean looking not to be suspect; he gets bureau endorsement simply because the Minister of Culture wants the girl for himself. At first undertaking the task with his customary zeal, he is first disabused, and then so drawn into the lives of the couple that, even when they do commit an infringement, he fabricates his reports to protect them.
Review:
Clinically shot, and acted with admirable precision, the film evokes in a far less lighthearted way than Goodbye, Lenin! what life was like behind the iron curtain, especially for those engaged in cultural professions. The couple are ironically doomed by the captain's very efforts to shield them (the fictitious body in the car) but the film is more about how humanity cannot be stifled, even in the most dehumanizing of systems, and the man's essential goodness will out. Unlike his superiors he was at least sincere in his motives, even when most coldly efficient at what he was doing. The film inevitably conjures memories of The Conversation, but they are in the end superficial: this is far less a technical exercise, more a shattering drama of the totalitarian state and what it does to people. (It is interesting to note that the film provoked some furore in the former GDR because not only is there no historic basis for the transformation of a Stasi employee as depicted here, not only would it have been impossible given the internal checks and balances, but there is even a climate of denial and intimidation by former Stasi members in the current East Germany, very far from South Africa's Truth and Reconciliation ethos, leading to former victims feeling that wrongs have gone unrecognised, let alone compensated, and that a film which pretends that 'all is forgiven' is an insult to those who suffered.)
(Das Leben der Anderen)
Country: GER
Technical: col/scope 138m
Director: Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck
Cast: Martina Gedeck, Ulrich Mühe, Sebastian Koch, Ulrich Tukur
Synopsis:
East Berlin in the early 80s: a Stasi interrogator and surveillance specialist assigns himself the case of a fashionable playwright and his actress girlfriend, because his hunch tells him he is too clean looking not to be suspect; he gets bureau endorsement simply because the Minister of Culture wants the girl for himself. At first undertaking the task with his customary zeal, he is first disabused, and then so drawn into the lives of the couple that, even when they do commit an infringement, he fabricates his reports to protect them.
Review:
Clinically shot, and acted with admirable precision, the film evokes in a far less lighthearted way than Goodbye, Lenin! what life was like behind the iron curtain, especially for those engaged in cultural professions. The couple are ironically doomed by the captain's very efforts to shield them (the fictitious body in the car) but the film is more about how humanity cannot be stifled, even in the most dehumanizing of systems, and the man's essential goodness will out. Unlike his superiors he was at least sincere in his motives, even when most coldly efficient at what he was doing. The film inevitably conjures memories of The Conversation, but they are in the end superficial: this is far less a technical exercise, more a shattering drama of the totalitarian state and what it does to people. (It is interesting to note that the film provoked some furore in the former GDR because not only is there no historic basis for the transformation of a Stasi employee as depicted here, not only would it have been impossible given the internal checks and balances, but there is even a climate of denial and intimidation by former Stasi members in the current East Germany, very far from South Africa's Truth and Reconciliation ethos, leading to former victims feeling that wrongs have gone unrecognised, let alone compensated, and that a film which pretends that 'all is forgiven' is an insult to those who suffered.)