Review of The Lives of Others (2006) by Nicole D — 08 Aug 2010

The Lives of Others is a story about us, a story about humanity. A story about desire and jealousy, fear and love, and all the things we want to see in ourselves and, of course, in others.

As you probably know by now, the setting is 1984 East Germany. I, like most people who have grown up through the 80s and were just beginning to understand that A is for Apple in 1988 could never really conceive of what "socialism" meant for the divided Germany. If this film is accurate, it wasn't pretty. The Ministry for State Security, also known in more underground terms as the Stasi, spearheaded programs to keep tabs on the goings-on of the East German people. Anyone who aided people across the wall into West Germany, anyone who had contraband, anyone who had bigger ideas than what the Stasi condoned was interrogated, imprisoned, or simply disappeared. In short, a dictatorship with an underground police state was what was masquerading as "socialism". Aren't political euphemisms great?

In the midst of all of this is Captain Wiesler (Ulrich Muhe) a loyal-to-a-fault officer who has dedicated his life to the service of East Germany. He is a man of habits and decorum, a man who is not used to making exceptions. His appearance is the personification of East Germany. He is well groomed and meticulous, his apartment is almost sterile and there is the sense that he is a man entirely reliant on the rules.

In juxtaposition is Georg Dreyend (Sebastian Koch), a writer, and his girlfriend, Crista-Maria Sieland (Martina Gedeck), an actress. They are as bohemian as East Germany can get. Their apartment is not sterile and white, it is warm and inviting, with Earth tones abounding. There are books, hence, ideas, everywhere free-flowing.

When these two worlds collide, a thriller begins to take shape, where the only thing that is certain is that nothing and no one are ever what or who they appear. And while there is a dreariness that feels as if the cinematographer might have captured despair and repression itself in the scenes, the end guarantees the one thing that every human being needs to cling to to survive, hope.