FILM OF THE WEEK
INTERVIEW | review: Das Leben der Anderen (The Lives of Others) |
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| Written by Boyd van Hoeij | |
| Monday, 30 October 2006 | |
 Spying in former East Germany feels startlingly real in the fictional German film Das Leben der Anderen (The Lives of Others). Directed by newcomer Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck (born in West Germany, though with East German family connections), the film is essentially a huis clos focussed on a Stasi or State Police Captain and the bohemian couple he is assigned to observe with the most modern means available, including wire tap, bugging and camera surveillance. Known for his expert interrogation techniques and also a teacher at the Stasi University, the Captain nevertheless falls under the spell of the couple and will decide to omit one apparently insignificant piece of information that will eventually snowball through the lives of not only the others, but especially his own. Not since Coppola's The Conversation has spying been so intensely and cinematically portrayed.A man with a blank stare steps into a lift in an anonymous high rise in 1984 East Berlin. Just before the doors close, a football bounces in, followed by its young owner. The doors close. The lift starts moving. The little boy looks up to the man and asks: “Is it true you work for the Stasi?” The man snaps back, like the expert interrogator the audience has come to know him: “Says who?” to which the young boy answers: “My father”. Not missing a beat, the man continues: “So, what is the name of…” before stopping mid-sentence. “Of what?” the boy wants to know. A few seconds of silence. “Of your football?” the man asks with incredulity in his voice, as if he cannot quite believe those words just left his mouth. “You’re crazy!” the boy says, “Footballs don’t have names!” This small gem of a scene, not even two minutes long, are the first cracks appearing in the outer veneer of the much-respected Stasi Captain, a staunch defender and teacher of state spying in East Germany, several years before the fall of the Berlin Wall. His name is Hauptmann Gerd Wiesler or HGW XX/7 (played by an exceptional Ulrich Mühe) and though he is the one observing others in Das Leben der Anderen, the film is squarely about him. It is a character drama that foregoes all the pyrotechnics of flashy thrillers and high-strung spy mysteries for something that gets under the skin. It is the type of highly intelligent character drama that passes through the brain before reaching the heart. Wiesler is assigned – at least partially by his own doing – to literally keep an eye and an ear on celebrated playwright Georg Dreyman (Sebastian Koch, the Nazi Officer in Zwartboek/Black Book) and his live-in girlfriend, lauded actress Christa-Maria Sieland (Martina Gedeck, Bella Martha/Mostly Martha). Their bohemian existence seems to somehow fit with the party line and Wiesler cannot uncover any blemishes, until an incident involving Dreyman’s playwright friend Jerska (Volkmar Kleinert) will change both Dreyman and the man who follows his every move. Technically, the film is polished and avoids the fixed-camera Big Brother aesthetic by softly gliding through the rooms to the notes of Gabriel Yared’s low-key but effective score. The beauty of Henckel von Donnersmarck’s script and direction is that he trusts the audience to pick up on the small changes and motivations in his characters, even if they are apparently inexplicable. The first time Wiesler realises that something dubitable is going on in the Dreyman household, he acts on an impulse and censors it from his daily report. This small action will snowball through the rest of the lives of all of the characters, not only his own, but also that of Dreyman, and, more tragically, Sieland’s. It is unlikely that he would have allowed such a slip-up had he known beforehand where it would lead, but in that split-second of decision making, he has sealed his fate for years to come (an unsentimental epilogue set after the fall of the Berlin Wall shows how everyone’s lives have been affected by each other’s actions). The film is long (it runs 137 minutes) but the rhythm never flags; the script is full of subtle mirror effects and references, and its themes only gradually surface, again trusting the audience with the material. One of the major themes is of course the play acting metaphor: actress Sieland and playwright Dreyman are in the business of make-belief, while Wiesler is on the opposite end of the spectrum, trying to find out the real feelings and intentions behind people’s public masks. In a police state, everyone is aware that a certain level of acting is necessary when in public, if only to avoid drawing attention to one self that might invite further scrutiny. Henckel von Donnersmarck’s film on the other hand is a work that can easily bear multiple viewings and an investigation of its characters and motives. In fact, it is exactly this denseness of storytelling that the rookie filmmaker carries off with such light grace that makes Das Leben der Anderen compelling. Buy the DVD at: amazon.com, amazon.co.uk, amazon.de. Browse for DVDs, soundtracks, books and more: amazon.fr, dvdGO.es, internetbookshop.it, nl.bol.com, allposters.com.
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