Scan and Pan
Sunday, February 18, 2007
Das Leben der Anderen (The Lives of Others)
East Berlin, 1984. Gerd Wiesler is a loyal agent of the Ministry for State Security (aka the Stasi), assigned to monitor the activities of playwright Georg Dreymann and his actress girlfriend, Christa-Maria. As Wiesler becomes immersed in the daily lives of Dreymann and Christa-Maria through monitoring their bugged apartment, he begins to question what he's doing and even lies in his reports to protect them. After a dissident stage director commits suicide, Dreymann writes an article that is smuggled out and published in a West German newspaper. Now that Dreymann has committed an actual political crime, what will Wiesler do?
This is an impressive feature film debut for writer/director Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck, who went into a six week seclusion in a monastery to write the script. He has a keen understanding of his characters and their motivations, and never falls into the trap of placing them into simple categories of good or bad -- they're all presented as flawed human beings. He crafts the film with great care and subtlety, revealing to the audience great compassion for the characters and an intelligent examination of how the state uses fear to control people (despite being set in East Germany, the film is relevant to state control in general rather than one particular state). It's equal parts social commentary, psychological drama, and political thriller, and it leaves the audience feeling more than satisfied in all three areas. There's also a good sense of dark humor that keeps it from getting too grim.
Cinematographer Hagen Bogdanski relies on practical light sources to capture a heightened sense of reality and a deliberate drabness that brilliantly conveys the grey world the characters inhabit. Production designer Silke Buhr and costume designer Gabriele Binder bring the recent past back to life in a fashion that's rich on period atmosphere. The excellent score by Gabriel Yared (Breaking and Entering, The English Patient) and Stéphane Moucha adds to the dramatic tension without distracting from the story or the performances.
Ulrich Mühe is simply perfect as Wiesler, whose surveillance begins to shed light on the limitations of his own life. A Stasi agent isn't a sympathetic character, but Mühe ever so subtly reveals Wiesler's humanity and growing conscience, making him a sympathetic protagonist in the end. Sebastian Koch delivers a strong performance as Dreymann, and Martina Gedeck's portrayal of Christa-Maria as a creative woman whose spirit is broken by her circumstances is also outstanding. Noteworthy performances are also put forward by Ulrich Tukur as Wiesler's friend and commanding officer, Charly Hübner (think of a German Jack Black) in a surprisingly funny turn as a Stasi agent who particularly enjoys spying on artists because of all the sex he thinks they have, Volkmar Kleinert as the dissident director who commits suicide, Hans-Uwe Bauer as a dissident journalist, and Thomas Thieme as a corrupt minister using the Stasi to further his personal agenda.
It's not often that a director's feature film debut is one of the best films of a given year, but this is one of those rare occasions. Like all great dramas, it's a keen examination of the human condition told with great understanding by a skilled director and an outstanding cast. Highly recommended.
This 2006 German drama was nominated for a record eleven German Film Awards, winning seven, and is also an Academy Award nominee for Best Foreign Language Picture.
East Berlin, 1984. Gerd Wiesler is a loyal agent of the Ministry for State Security (aka the Stasi), assigned to monitor the activities of playwright Georg Dreymann and his actress girlfriend, Christa-Maria. As Wiesler becomes immersed in the daily lives of Dreymann and Christa-Maria through monitoring their bugged apartment, he begins to question what he's doing and even lies in his reports to protect them. After a dissident stage director commits suicide, Dreymann writes an article that is smuggled out and published in a West German newspaper. Now that Dreymann has committed an actual political crime, what will Wiesler do?
This is an impressive feature film debut for writer/director Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck, who went into a six week seclusion in a monastery to write the script. He has a keen understanding of his characters and their motivations, and never falls into the trap of placing them into simple categories of good or bad -- they're all presented as flawed human beings. He crafts the film with great care and subtlety, revealing to the audience great compassion for the characters and an intelligent examination of how the state uses fear to control people (despite being set in East Germany, the film is relevant to state control in general rather than one particular state). It's equal parts social commentary, psychological drama, and political thriller, and it leaves the audience feeling more than satisfied in all three areas. There's also a good sense of dark humor that keeps it from getting too grim.
Cinematographer Hagen Bogdanski relies on practical light sources to capture a heightened sense of reality and a deliberate drabness that brilliantly conveys the grey world the characters inhabit. Production designer Silke Buhr and costume designer Gabriele Binder bring the recent past back to life in a fashion that's rich on period atmosphere. The excellent score by Gabriel Yared (Breaking and Entering, The English Patient) and Stéphane Moucha adds to the dramatic tension without distracting from the story or the performances.
Ulrich Mühe is simply perfect as Wiesler, whose surveillance begins to shed light on the limitations of his own life. A Stasi agent isn't a sympathetic character, but Mühe ever so subtly reveals Wiesler's humanity and growing conscience, making him a sympathetic protagonist in the end. Sebastian Koch delivers a strong performance as Dreymann, and Martina Gedeck's portrayal of Christa-Maria as a creative woman whose spirit is broken by her circumstances is also outstanding. Noteworthy performances are also put forward by Ulrich Tukur as Wiesler's friend and commanding officer, Charly Hübner (think of a German Jack Black) in a surprisingly funny turn as a Stasi agent who particularly enjoys spying on artists because of all the sex he thinks they have, Volkmar Kleinert as the dissident director who commits suicide, Hans-Uwe Bauer as a dissident journalist, and Thomas Thieme as a corrupt minister using the Stasi to further his personal agenda.
It's not often that a director's feature film debut is one of the best films of a given year, but this is one of those rare occasions. Like all great dramas, it's a keen examination of the human condition told with great understanding by a skilled director and an outstanding cast. Highly recommended.
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