Plot Details: This opinion reveals minor details about the movie's plot.

One of the things that a really good movie can do, even more so than a really good novel, is to transport the audience back to another time, another place. But this “feel” is something more than just sets and costumes, it’s a mindset, something the Germans call the zeitgeist, which literally translated means the “spirit of the time”. It’s something that’s not always easy to achieve in a motion picture, but without doubt writer/director Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck has done just this in the film Das Leben Der Anderen (The Lives of Others).

As the film opens, it’s 1985 in the Deutsche Demokratische Republik (aka the DDR, GDR, or East Germany). Gerd Wiesler (Ulrich Muhe) is a Hauptmann (Captain) in the Ministerium fur Staatssicherheit (Ministry for State Security), or Stasi for short. He’s been given an assignment to monitor the doings of author playwrite Georg Dreyman (Sebastian Koch), a heretofore loyal citizen who is now suspected of anti-socialist activities.

Wiesler and his operatives enter and bug Dreyman’s apartment, and then the stone-faced Captain sets up shop in the building listening in on all the author and his girlfriend Christa-Maria Sieland (Martina Gedeck) say and do. In effect, this state-sanctioned eaves-dropping becomes almost voyeuristic, as Wiesman is privy to the intimate physical and intellectual aspects of the couple’s relationship.

As time goes by, Wiesler starts to learn that the lives of others are never quite as straightforward as they seem on the surface. Dreyman, for example, runs into writers block because he’s devastated by the death of a friend who was blacklisted by the communists from directing. Christa, a stage actress, is hopelessly insecure, and has an illicit relationship with Party Minister Bruno Hempf (Thomas Thieme) to ensure that she keeps her place on stage. What’s more, she’s become addicted to illegal medications to help her deal with the guilt of her unwanted affair.

Knowing that Hempf was behind the decision to monitor Dreyman in the first place, Wiesler soon surmises his real motives: to remove Dreyman as a rival for Christa’s affections. And as he continues to learn more and more about the couple, an amazing thing begins to happen: he becomes drawn into their lives, and starts to identify and eventually sympathize with them. But when Dreyman actually becomes engaged in what the state considers subversive activities, Wiesman must choose between his developing admiration for the pair and duty to the state-lest his own career and perhaps even life become forfeit.

Das Leben Der Anderen manages to recreate a spirit of oppression so thick you can almost cut it with a knife. Our cast of characters must always be careful of what they say and do, lest they be arrested by the hated Stasi, and we really do get a feel for what life must have been like in those dark days.

We couldn’t, of course, experience this without the remarkable performances here. Sebastian Koch brings us a Dreyman longing to write plays with real meaning rather than the socialist propaganda the state allows, and we can see his pain and conviction delivered more and more brilliantly as the film goes on. Gedeck’s Sieland, however, is even more realistically portrayed. Her insecurity and guilt are written all over her face, and we can’t help but sympathize with her desperation to hold onto the career she treasures so highly.

Perhaps best of all, however, is Muhe’s Wiesler. Despite remaining mostly emotionless throughout the film, he manages to bring an amazing chrysalis to the character. In one scene, we see Wiesler follow Christa into a bar, and after hearing her talk uncertainly about her acting abilities in her apartment, he makes conversation with her and begins to build her up. In another, Wiesler is in Dreyman’s apartment building riding the elevator with a small boy. The boy asks him if he’s really Stasi, and the Hauptmann begins to ask the name of the boy’s father-until he thinks better of it and drops the matter.

It is in such scenes that we begin to see the transformation and sudden epiphany about the truths of reality versus idealism that make the film so wonderful. And it is Muhe’s spot-on acting that make this possible.

Das Leben Der Anderen is rate r for nudity and is in German with English subtitles. The film won an Oscar for Best Foreign Film in 2007, and it’s arguably one of the best movies to come along in any language for some time. Because the lives of others always fascinate us, wherever and whenever they may be.

More German Cinema:

Downfall (Der Untergang)

Das Boot

Stalingrad

Goodbye, Lenin


Recommended: Yes

Viewing Format: DVD
Video Occasion: Fit for Friday Evening