Review of The Lives of Others (2006) by Dan K — 31 Jan 2010

Normal Guy 50-Words-Or-Less Plot: A Stasi agent who specializes in domestic surveillance and interrogation spies on a couple and his values and life are affected.

This is one good movie. There, I said it.

Stasi agent Wiesler is given a mission to spy on a couple who make their living (if you can call it that) in the theater in East Germany in the mid-1980s. Before I saw the movie I thought it was going to focus on the artsy couple and their trendy and â??subversiveâ?? not-so-PC friends. I was pleasantly surprised. The story is really told from Weislerâ??s perspective.

You get the impression Wiesler was supposed to keep his distance from these people but his own consciousness gets a reconditioning. There is one scene where he causes the doorbell to ring at a significant moment which marks the beginning of his change.

The director (Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck) uses color and light in some inventive ways. The actor who plays Wiesler (Ulrich Muehe) was actually the subject of Stasi surveillance in real life following his graduation from high school. Why? Because the â??progressiveâ?? socialist government in the East Germany thought he was destined for film stardom in Europe. He actually produced his Stasi file for the director before they started shooting so the director would know who he was getting.

Thereâ??s one other dimension to the film. There is a sadness which runs through it. Itâ??s about lives and talents wasted by a state with no other reason to exist than to maintain its own power. There was no democratic republic in East Germany...ever. The film explores, without moralizing, the farce and ridiculousness of a corrupt and malevolent state. Donnersmarck is able to reach back over the decades and beyond the Berlin Wall into the brutality and evil of the completely not missed GDR. He examines well the sick, cruel economy and psychology of socialism.

The cinematography is real good in its use of color and tone does a great job in communicating mood and perspective. This is a good story with a much needed theme.