The Lives of Others (Das Leben der Anderen)
An engrossing thriller
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Friday, 13, Apr 2007 12:00
Directed by Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck, out from April 13th, starring Ulrich Mühe, Sebastian Koch, and Martina Gedeck, running time 137 minutes .
In a nutshell.
Oscar-winning. Morally-grounded. Satisfying. Surprising. Magisterial.
What's it all about?
On all the conventional markers of success, Stasi agent and interrogation expert Gerd Wiesler (Mühe) has got it made. He is unchallenged in his field, intimate with party potentates and unwaveringly on-message on the party line. Then he begins bugging the apartment of playwright Georg Dreyman (Koch) and his actress girlfriend, listening for signs of sedition. But communing with his wire-tapping technology in a concrete cell, he hears instead the happy patter of a real relationship. The life these 'others' share begins to exert a magnetic pull.
By the time he detects dissension in Dreyman's circle, Wiesler is hungry for the real stuff of life: love, music, art, not the ersatz alternatives the party offers. He starts perverting the state's espionage technologies to cover for Dreyman, first doctoring his reports, then acting as an invisible hand. Finally, he steps onto the stage himself, politically compromised and humming with life.
Who's in it?
Ulrich Mühe seems to be channelling Kevin Spacey as Gerd Wiesler, his steady, absorptive look cushioning his awakening from a steely-eyed functionary armoured in a fitted grey fleece (very 80s East German) to a man with a potent moral pulse.
Sebastian Koch (Georg Dreyman), meanwhile, is craggily dashing as the sauve sophisticate with impeccable ideological credentials who learns to match his courage to his talents and privileges. Finally, the casting director deserves a mention for subjecting us to Thomas Thieme as the repulsive minister of culture, a monstrous, lustful, toad-like predator with hanging jowls and a dull-eyed leer.
As an example.
"You know what Lenin said about Beethoven's 'Appassionata'? 'If I keep listening to it I won't finish the revolution.' Can anyone who has heard this music - truly heard it - really be a bad person?" (Georg Dreyman)
Likelihood of a trip to the Oscars
The Lives of Others picked up the one award it was eligible for at the 2007 Oscars: Best Foreign Language Film. And deservedly so. It is a magnificently structured piece of work that plumps for earnest communication over neurotically layered narrative or off-beat aesthetics. Great, intelligent, straightforward story telling.
What the others say
"Von Donnersmarck has crafted the best kind of movie: one you can't get out of your head." - Peter Travers, Rolling Stone.
"Rich in authentic period atmosphere and performances, but sabotages its best efforts with a sentimental payoff." - Jan Stuart, Newsday.
So is it any good?
Writer-director von Donnersmarck has built a watertight vessel, a big and believable story readied for the ride with a strong moral compass. A heartfelt homage to how humanity seeps in through the cracks in an iron-clad system, The Lives of Others tells an old story about listening and learning, shot through with emotional truth.
Though visibly blemished, the film's palpable, beating heart is the love between Georg and Christa-Maria. The sacred fabric of their small world is scrupulously documented. The sacrilege the state commits by violating that world - the wire under the wallpaper, the Stasi slamming the piano lid - distils its evil effect on ordinary lives.
Von Donnersmarck drives the narrative momentum forward resolutely, coupling clever structure with a couple of exhilaratingly deft plot-turns. A swell of music from composer Gabriel Yared or a shot of two people lying close together deliver frank emotional crescendos. A formidable piece of work.
10/10
Sophie Middlemiss