The Lives of Others (2006) April 17, 2008
Posted by gproject in : Recently Viewed , trackbackDirected by: Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck
The 2007 Academy Awards featured its fair share of ’sure thing’ winners. Not that anything is ever in the bag, but it wouldn’t have been a mistake to put money on Helen Mirren taking home Best Actress for The Queen, Forest Whitaker grabbing Best Actor for The Last King of Scotland [review], or Martin Scorsese winning Best Achievement in Directing with The Departed [review]. Others too might have suggested that Guillermo del Toro’s runaway fantasy hit Pan’s Labyrinth [review] was a shoo-in for Best Foreign Language film. It was, therefore, a welcomed upset to see this German Stasi themed drama - a film only just on limited release in the US at the time - rob the crown from the front runner. And a well-deserved theft it was too.
As a tension-filled account of post-war suspicion, the story concerns the lives of dramatist Georg Dreyman and his girlfriend Christa-Maria Sieland, who are players on the regional social scene but rebel against many of the ideals shared by their peers. Concerned by their behaviour (and smitten with Christa-Maria) the powerful Minister of Culture decides to have Georg watched, and so hires agent Hauptmann Gerd Wiesler to conduct a full-time surveillance operation. But as time passes, Wiesler’s passive eavesdropping draws him into the life of the couple, until he doesn’t know which loyalties are more important to him - that of his bosses, or his unknowing subjects.
This is writer and director Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck’s first feature film, yet he handles it with great skill. His script carefully builds the tension as well as the emotionally involved nature of the non-relationship that forms between Wiesler and the subjects of his mission. It’s not an overly judgemental story, although it does side against oppression, and it takes the time to involve us with Dreyman and Sieland’s activities as much as it does Wiesler’s. A wise move, since as the plot progresses we need empathy for both side’s actions, and this is one area where the story really shines.
As with many first-features, it was made on a rather miniscule $2 million budget, with the central actors all working for a fraction of their usual fee. Not that it shows in the final product, as the 1980’s decor and the quality of the performances all ring true. Ulrich Mühe is engrossing in the central role, a seemingly cold follower of the rules who breaks down as he becomes involved in the lives of the two artists. To call him a Kevin Spacey look-alike is almost too easy, but there’s definitely something there that reminds you of Spacey and it’s in more than just his looks. Martina Gedeck and Sebastian Koch are the unstable couple under surveillance, while Ulrich Tukur plays the ruthless Lieutenant Colonel Anton Grubitz, and Thomas Thieme takes the part of an even more ruthless political minister, Bruno Hempf.
Set definitively in its time, the story is one of frightening reality when you consider that the actions of the Stasi Police were indeed as intrusive and covert as shown here. It takes history and wraps a dramatic element around it that far outweighs the experience of its creator. With a haunting score and cinematography that displays the cold reality of living with, and under, such paranoid authorities, everything has its place in telling the story with as much detail as possible - from the threat of blacklisting for artists, to the educational research and teaching that was part of developing the Stasi interrogation techniques. Though this is not a particularly ’scary’ film about 1980’s East Germany, there is an undeniable lingering sense of dread.
The Lives of Others was an Oscar win that didn’t pander to everyone’s expectations and hopefully raised the profile of a wonderful foreign language film - something that can only help their all-too limited distribution. Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck has outdone himself as a career opener, and even if I’d argue that the film could have taken some light editing to trim down the 137 minute running time, or that the ending endures maybe one-too-many jumps forward in time before it rests on a conclusion, this is still a credible Oscar winner and, in my opinion, a better film than Pan’s Labyrinth. Whatever you think of Guillermo del Toro’s fairytale horror, you owe it to yourself to see The lives of Others. Cries of “we were robbed!” are unfounded until you do.
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