Even a broken clock will indicate the right time twice a day, and this time Hollywood got it right, anointing writer-director Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck's extraordinary feature directorial debut, The Lives of Others (Das Leben der Anderen/2006) as Best Foreign Language Film. On second thought, the fact that this film got rewarded by the Oscars' Jury, the same jury which considered that a movie of the likes of Little Miss Sunshine (2006) should be seriously considered for an award, may not be such a welcome accolade, and maybe The Lives of Othersis not such a great film after all. But it definitely is. This is arguably the best new production I have seen over the last couple of years, bar none: the story, the direction, the acting, the suspense, the music, everything is ticking with the precision of a Swiss watch.

I never had the "pleasure" of living in the "Workers' Paradise" of East Germany before the fall of the Wall, and therefore cannot vouch for the authenticity of the life depicted in this film, but others have, and I have read enough of their accounts, including some by von Donnersmarck's childhood memories (his father's uncle was the Chief of Protocol for East Germany's President, Eric Honecker), to be convinced that "that's the way it was." For almost five decades, some sixteen millions people lived in an Orwellian country known as the DDR, Deutsche Demokratische Republik (East Germany) under the control of the most Stalinist government in Europe. Its citizens were under the constant surveillance and control of the most sophisticated secret police the world had ever known, the East German Ministerium für Staatssicherheit, or Stasi, (from Staatssicherheit), with the efficiency, excuse my cliché, for which Germans are renowned. The Stasi employed about 100,000 agents, plus a network of several hundred thousand "extras," who willingly, through bribery, or through coercion reported to the Stasi, informing on their neighbors, co-workers, friends, and even own family members. Stasi only goal was to know everything about the "lives of others."

The Synopsis

The Lives of Others is at once a political thriller and a human drama. The film opens in East Berlin, in 1984, with a scene where Stasi Captain Gerd Wiesler (Ulrich Muehe), code name "HGW XX/7," is demonstrating his interrogation technique to a class of aspiring Stasi policemen, using an actual video of his own interrogation of a suspect. A student asks a question that Wiesler judges to be a bit too compassionate (read "bourgeois"), and the professor marks the student's name on the attendance record: surely this student has just flunked the course, or maybe worse. During the feature's first thirty minutes, von Donnersmarck depicts a portrait of Wiesler that seems to border on caricature: Wiesler is a highly skilled officer of the Stasi, a proud, zealous, disciplined professional. He is one of the many cogs in the wheel of "the System," working anonymously and tirelessly, convinced that all his efforts are necessary for building a better Socialist society.

At the end of the class, Lieutenant-Colonel Anton Grubitz (Ulrich Tukur), Wiesler's old school friend (and probably his only "friend"), who has risen to the position of head of the Culture Department at Stasi, comes to invite Wiesler to a theatrical premiere. The play is by the celebrated East German playwright, Georg Dreyman (Sebastian Koch), and its leading character is played by Dreyman's lover, Christa-Maria Sieland (Martina Gedeck), herself an actress of great reputation. Up to now, Dreyman, who writes plays about the heroic proletariat, has lived a rather comfortable life in an East Berlin plush apartment, enjoying a certain notoriety among the DDR officials while preserving the respect of his fellow artists by using his (relatively) secured position for occasional interventions in favor of fellow dissident artists. Wiesler, at once, suspects that Dreyman's loyalty to the party is not as strong as it would seem on the surface, even if the high party officials are convinced. Following the play, Grubitz has a brief conversation regarding Dreyman, with Culture Minister Bruno Hempf (Thomas Thieme), who also was attending the premiere. Hempf is attracted to the leading lady. However, since Dreyman is in the way, he must somehow be eliminated. Hempf, who happens also to be a member of the ZK (Zentralkomitee) who has authority over the Stasi, tells Grubitz about his reservations regarding the playwright's loyalty to the SED (Sozialistische Einheitspartei Deutschlands or Socialist Unity Party), suggesting a full-scale surveillance operation of Dreyman. Grubitz, always eager to better his own political future, asks his friend Wiesler to manage this "Operative Procedure" (the highest level of monitoring of suspected individuals), code-named "Lazlo" (an allusion to Casablanca?), the latter promising to oversee the case personally. Soon after, Hempf meets the artists at a party in their honor, and in a rather unsubtle way lets Christina-Maria know of his feelings toward her.

Wiesler stalks Dreyman, noting his comings and goings, and while the playwright is temporarily away, has Dreyman’s apartment systematically bugged. Wiesler sets up his surveillance headquarters in the attic, just above the apartment. Soon Wiesler’s observations indicate that, contrary to his prejudices toward artists as free-thinkers, Dreyman's attitude toward the DDR and its SED is not particularly scornful. In the meantime, Christa-Maria has been "convinced" by Minister Hempf to be receptive to his advances, and when Wiesler finds out about this development, it dawns on him that maybe Operation Lazlo has more to do with the libido of the Minister than with the DDR's security.

Dreyman is provoked to take some action, any action, by the awareness of his lover's unwanted sexual relationship with the Minister and the death of his close friend, theater director Albert Jerska (Volkmar Kleinert) who had been driven to suicide after many years of being “blacklisted” by the government. Dreyman resolves to help reveal the true face of the DDR Government to the outside world. With the help of well-positioned West Germans, he plans to publish an anonymous exposé in one of the leading West German weeklies, Der Speigel, concerning the DDR Government cover-up of the high suicide rate in East Germany.

Wiesler, who has been monitoring Dreyman’s activities all along, has finally trapped his victim and will provide another victory to the DDR by foiling Dreyman’s plot. However, Wiesler is starting to waver in his determination to bring Operation Lazlo to its conclusion. In the process of snooping in his victims' everyday life, including their love-lives, he has unconsciously been drawn into their world, which in turn has put his own in question. When Dreyman's article is finally published in the West, it is a public disaster for the DDR, and the playwright becomes one of the prime suspects. Grubitz is incredulous that in spite of his expertise, Wiesler could have been duped by Dreyman. Minister Hempf, discovering Christa-Maria's drug addiction, threatens to terminate her acting career unless she collaborates with the authorities and denounces her lover as the author of the embarrassing article, which she does. Stasi searches Dreyman's apartment, but comes up empty-handed. Now Wiesler, who had withheld the evidence concerning the source of the article, must now decide where his allegiances lay: to the DDR and to his brilliant career as a top Stasi officer or to Dreyman whose honest lifestyle he has come to appreciate. I will not reveal the remaining twists and turns of the story that lead to a dramatic resolution of the Lazlo operation, because you should discover it for yourself.

Following this resolution, we are projected seven years forward in time. The Berlin wall fell two years earlier, as Dreyman runs into ex-Minister Hempf (who has survived the political upheaval very well, thank you), who tells him about Operation Lazlo. Dreyman, using the Stasi archives which have now been made public, discovers the reality of his past and its cruel truths.

The Production

The Lives of Othersis a fictitious story based on historical facts. Director von Donnersmarck was also the scenarist. The film's characters were compiled from many different real-life figures, to the extend that several of its actors had been themselves the victims of Stasi surveillance and persecutions, and their own private experiences have contributed immensely toward the authenticity of the film. For example, Ulrich Mühe (Wiesler) found out after the Wall came down that not only several members of his theater group were spying on him, but his ex-wife had been a Stasi informer and spied on him for a dozen of years. Thomas Thieme (Hempf) was harassed by Stasi before he managed to leave Germany in the 1980s, and Stasi tried to recruit Volkmar Kleinert (Jerska) as an informer on his fellow actors

von Donnersmarck's quest for authenticity led him to shoot in as many original locations in East Berlin as possible, such as in the former Stasi headquarters, which included Stasi's original file-card archives, seen at the end of the picture. All of the furniture and objects needed for the film – bugs, surveillance equipment, a room full of machines that steam open letters, and so on, are all original items, gathered from private collectors and museums by prop master Klaus Spielhagen, himself blacklisted by Stasi and imprisoned for two years. The streets of East Berlin are shot with hardly any traffic, as they were then, and the local pub is also nearly empty. Wiesler lives in one of these drab, lifeless, high-rise apartment buildings prevalent in the Eastern European countries under communist regimes, while Dreyman occupies a gentrified apartment in an old building, typical of the old Berlin. The cinematography contributes greatly to the film's atmosphere. The colors are pale and unsaturated. Brown, gray, beige, orange, and especially green dominate the palette, with blues and reds noticeably absent. As a result of this absolute realism, this film was well-received in Germany, particularly in East Germany, by the press, leading authors, freedom fighters, and intellectuals of the former DDR: they all wrote praising the film for its authenticity.

The success of this film owes much to the high caliber of its actors, several of them having been previously exposed to similar scenarios in real life. In particular, one of Germany's leading actresses, the beautiful Martina Gedeck, recipient of many awards, gives a subtle, vulnerable performance. Sebastian Koch's insouciant, bordering on arrogant, attitude of an adulated playwright is convincing. Multitalented Ulrich Tukur renders the role of a devious, opportunistic department head perfectly, and Thomas Thieme is absolutely repulsive as the lecherous Minister. But it is Ulrich Mühe 's superb performance, the depth and subtlety of emotions that underscore his acting as he evolves from an ideological bureaucrat into a compassionate human being, which is most fascinating. His performance is not without recalling that of another voyeur, the equally wonderful Michel Blanc in Patrice Leconte's Monsieur Hire (1989).

Another asset of The Lives of Otherswhich contributed to its success is its haunting film score, composed by the multiple award-winner, Gabriel Yared (The Lover/1992, The English Patient/1996, Cold Mountain/2003). In particular, one notices the exquisite "Sonata for a Good Man," an excerpt of which is played in the film by Dreyman. The sorrowful and complex music was recorded by the outstanding Prague Symphony Orchestra.

von Donnersmarck offers viewers a cathartic second ending to his film, an equivalent of a musical coda or a literary epilogue, which is a welcome relief to the viewers. There is indeed an under-current of sadness that builds up slowly, imperceptibly, as the film progresses. If The Lives of Others is a political thriller, it is also a human drama, and it is a tribute to the director's artistry and depth that draws his audience into the relentless torments of his characters' wasted talents and lives. At the end of the projection, there were hardly any dry eyes in the audience, which was itself enveloped with a feeling of deep sorrow. If one feels compassion for the misery endured by the subjugated people of East Germany, one cannot help but to also feel genuine empathy for Wiesler. And after a brief moment, something happened which I have very seldom heard or seen in an American movie theater: people applauded.

This film is 137 minutes short, and as a final remark on the production, I will add that the intensity of the drama is such that very soon, for those of us who do not speak German, we forget we are reading subtitles.

The Themes

The film's first theme is of political nature: life in the "Workers' Paradise" of East Germany in the 1980s -- love it or…don't leave it. The Lives of Othersis the first film that treats an aspect of the life in the DDR which, up to now, has been avoided. All the previous films about East Germany were generally light-hearted; the latest one which met with some success in the US was Good Bye Lenin! (2003), portraying the DDR as a benevolent dictatorship at best, and a bad joke for sure. The present film shows a totally different aspect of East Germany, that of a gloomy country with an oppressive government. We are showed how politics can infect — and potentially destroy — every aspect of a citizen's life: work, creativity, leisure, intimacy, and even sex. Steering smoothly between the personal and the political arenas, the film shows how destructively the two fields of activities were combined for millions of innocent East Germans. More generally, we are confronted with a basic reality which is that no matter which country one considers, there are always people in the higher echelons of government who, with the complicity of eager followers, seek to highjack the freedom of the citizens under the pretext of fighting a common internal, but more often external, threat. These politicos are motivated by ideologies, private ambitions, greed, stupidity, or ignorance. Germany is one good example, and we, in the United States, should not be too complacent to believe that it cannot happen here. It is presently happening under the influence of the group of "neocons" who are playing fast and loose with the US Constitution, slowly and deliberately cutting back our civil liberties at home. Do I have to remind you that the neocons' doctrine has its roots in Trotsky's concept of government?

The second theme follows from the first: knowledge is power. In its quest to have absolute power over the East German citizens, the government must strive to obtain absolute knowledge of every aspect of their lives -- their thoughts, behavior, intentions, and activities -- at all times. Through this knowledge, the government can act to counter any subversive activities which could challenge and endanger the regime. This is a question of life or death for the government, and it must employ all means possible, spare no efforts, and be vigilant 24/7, in its quest for information. Governmental justification for spying on its own citizens is, of course, the common external enemy (in this case, Western capitalism) which threatens the Socialist regime. In other times, for different governments with different enemies, the end result is the same: a gross violation of the citizens' human rights.

The film's third theme is a philosophical one: it explicitly shows how an ideology must shut off one's feelings in order to pursue one's goals. The true essence of ideology is the total supremacy of its principle over feelings, and the biggest life challenge is finding the right balance between the two -- between one's ideological principle and one's true feelings -- when confronted with a moral choice.

I would agree with Minister Hempf's statement that "People don't change." No matter what happens in a person's life, that person remains true to his or her nature. However, when along the way, one attains the right balance, albeit temporarily, between ideology and feelings, one is said to have "changed." In this context Minister Hempf's statement is wrong, and Captain Wiesler does change. As always, there is never only one cause for a change. Wiesler's dramatic change actually begins soon into the story, when he goes to the theater, an unusual diversion for the person so far depicted. This is followed by his growing awareness of Grubitz's opportunistic character, resulting in his old friend occupying a better position in the Stasi than is own. Weisler contends with the arbitrary use of absolute power when he finds out that his mission has more to do with Minister Hempf's sexual urges than with the defense of Socialism. Finally, as he takes over the direction of Operation Lazlo, Wiesler gets exposed to people whom he would usually only have met during an interrogation situation. And as he becomes more and more familiar with every intimate aspect of their lives, Wiesler starts to question his own life. Through these people, he gets exposed to the arts, and goes so far as to "borrow" (this could have been a costly mistake for his operative procedure) and read a book by Bertolt Brecht. Although at first he is rather unwilling, even to the point of finally betraying Dreyman, all these things put together make him change, until he finally commits a genuine heroic act.

This film is the recipient of many prestigious awards, including seven 2006 Lola Awards (Germany) for Best Film, Best Director, Best Screenplay, Best Actor, Best Supporting Actor, Best Production Design, and Best Cinematography; the 2006 European Film Award for Best Film, Best Actor, and Best Screenwriter; the 2006 Los Angele Film Critic Award for Best Foreign Language Film; the 2006 Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film.


Recommended:
Yes

Movie Mood: Serious Movie
Viewing Method: Other
Film Completeness: Looked complete to me.
Worst Part of this Film: Nothing