The Lives of Others, 2006, Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck
*******SPOILERS********
Went out and bought this the other day and finally got around to seeing it. Fantastic film. Incredibly haunting and, ultimately, sad.
It takes place in East Germany a few years before the Wall comes down. An officer in the East German Secret Police (Stasi) is assigned to bug the apartment of a writer and his actress girlfriend in order to find "subversive" evidence against the writer - all so he can be affectively pushed out of the way - arrested - so a highly placed German official can force the actress into an affair.
The Stasi Officer is portrayed at first like all East German or Soviet officers usually are in the movies - as a caricature of evil banality. Yet as he listens into the lives of this couple, we see him become sympathetic to their plight, both as citizens of an oppressive government and as artists who are not allowed to express themselves without fear of reprisals. Even as he attempts to help the couple (he is unknown to them) his own superiors begin to suspect him of being on "the wrong side."
We see the inherent corruptness of the system and how life must have been like in that kind of society, where everyone was forced to "inform" on their neighbors, friends, family and lovers - or suffer the consequences.
The killing of one's soul must inevitably take place in such an atmosphere. In fact, when a stage director - and blacklisted - friend of the writer's kills himself, the writer authors a magazine article about suicide in GDR (under an assumed name) that puts everyone - the writer, the actress, his friends, and even the Stasi Officer and his superior, in danger.
This is a beautiful film to look at; quiet and reserved...with bursts of happiness and joy shown (though in very small doses) in order to highlight even more the dankness, desperation and hopelessness of the East German people's lives.
This film won the Best Foreign Language Film at this years Oscars, and it is well deserved. It's a work of art that will no doubt be considered one of the best German films in recent memory. This is a must-see. If I had seen it before writing my ten best of the 21st Century list, it would undoubtedly be on it.
****1/2 out of *****
