I appreciated The Lives of Others (2006) above all for being an intelligent, adult film for intelligent adults. While you might expect a story about the East German secret police spying on freedom-loving artists to be black and white, every character is complex and most of the issues complicated. Take for example the couple being spied on. He is East Germany’s foremost social realist playwright, except that he doesn’t really believe what he writes. He is cautious, a realist, holding his breath so to speak until something somehow changes for the better, maybe. Some of his more artistic and radical friends accuse him of being gutless, a sell-out. Both descriptions are true. Above all, he just wants to be in love with his woman, one of the foremost actresses in the country. She returns his love and stars in his plays, but she is also somewhat of a calculating climber who relies on black-market pills and tells her husband not to trust her with secrets. We care about this couple because they seem truly in love, and they are doing no one any direct harm.
The film gains depth not only from its complex characters but also from being more than one type of film rolled into one. It is a political thriller as well as a historical portrait of communist East Germany. Some viewers claim that the film is also a character study, others that it is a cautionary tale. To take these one at a time . . . As a political thriller, it is refreshingly devoid of all the fast editing, brash music, and meretricious tension of many in the genre. Rather, at the first of the film, we simply wonder whether this couple we are hoping for will get caught saying something against the totalitarian regime. Maybe one of them is actually up to something; maybe they will simply make a slip of the tongue. The suspense becomes more intense and complex when the playwright’s best friend and favourite director kills himself after 7 years of being blacklisted. The playwright is galvanized into action and writes an expose of the shocking number of suicides in East Germany caused in part by the hopelessness engendered by an unfair and totalitarian regime. A member of the secret police, Wiesler, is ensconced in the attic listening to every word, but he has a change of heart and doesn’t report them.
Although this change of heart by a veteran Stasi agent is the crux of the movie, we do not know with any certainty why he changes. The film offers a small number of subtle suggestions, but they do not amount to a character study. One hint is offered by the spy’s Stasi colleague who doubts more and more that Wiesler is a loyal party member: He says that he knew Wiesler as an interrogator and he was a good interrogator, but he doesn’t know Wiesler as a spy and maybe he’s not good at it. The implication is that Wiesler’s work in the questioning room and the classroom did not prepare him for entering the reality of other people’s lives. Another hint comes when Wiesler listens in on the playwright’s reaction to his best friend’s suicide: He plays a mournful and subtly angry piece on the piano, and the music is more moving than any words. The only other explanation of the change that I can think of is the contrast between the playwright’s true love for his wife and Wiesler’s lonely existence and demeaning service by a busy prostitute. I found these hints enough to believe the character change, but I understand when other viewers don’t. Either way, it does not amount to a character study, nor does it have to in order for the movie to work.
Finally, some viewers have seen the film as a cautionary tale about the giving governments free reign to monitor citizens. While it is the portrait of one totalitarian regime, they say, it is a warning about power and corruption generally. True? The fundamental question is whether the film does the work to generalize beyond East Germany or whether the viewers do all the work in order to generalize. The Lives of Others does not help or encourage us to generalize. We can see the movie as a warning about post-9/11 security measures. I saw lots of parallel between East Germany and the bureaucracies I’ve worked in. But the film does not foster either of these interpretations. If anything, it works against such interpretations because, in the denouement, we see the prosperity, freedom, and general good vibes when the evil East German regime has fallen and been replaced by West German democracy and capitalism.
All of which is to say that the movie is so good we should be on guard against claiming more for it in our enthusiasm that the film can bear.
Who is this movie for? If you are a savvy, adult cinema buff, you will probably find Wondrous Oblivion (2003/2006) boringly stereotypical. But if you are in your early teens, you may well enjoy it—I know I would have all those years ago.
Wondrous Oblivion is stereotypical because it is a coming-of-age story where a boy learns all the right life lessons from an appropriate mix of people. Even though David Wiseman (Sam Smith) and his family suffer anti-Semitism in the early 60s in their South London row housing, it is not bad, and you know it will not be serious. Even though the new neighbours from Jamaica experience racism, and even though the racism turns nasty, the white neighbours pull through in the end. Even though cricket-obsessed David is hopeless on the pitch, the Jamaican father next door is an excellent coach, and David makes the private school boy’s cricket team. It’s that kind of a movie.
Dennis, the father next door, is a wonderful teacher. He emphasizes inclusion, fun, and sound technique. When Dennis is teaching his daughter in the back yard and David appears for the first time in his gleaming white cricket gear, Dennis invites him, without a pause, to join them. When it immediately becomes obvious that David doesn’t have a clue how to bat or how to bowl, Dennis, with a glance at his talented daughter, Judy (Leonie Elliott), invites David for regular coaching. Instruction is simple and direct, followed by lots of practice. Sometimes the practice is high-spirited fun, as in one speeded-up scene set to wild klezmer music. Beyond being a good teacher, Dennis is a good role model. Although you might not know it from the current crop of movies, there are men out there who hold regular jobs, are good fathers, loyal husbands, and stalwarts of their community. Not perfect by any means, Dennis is still a response to the declaration that the greatest problem in America today is the lack of real fathers.
But what young David learns and how he learns it do not withstand serious scrutiny. David learns that his real friends are Dennis and his daughter, Judy, and the Jamaican community, and that more wealthy white people, such as those at his school or in the North London neighbourhood where his family is going to relocate, are hypocritical, etc. This is because Dennis’s family readily accepts David and works on his weaknesses and encourages his talents, while at school the boys hypocritically change from ridiculing him when he cannot play cricket to championing him when he becomes a good batter. But there are a couple of things amiss with this scenario. First, there is nothing wrong with a bunch of 11-year old athletes telling an oblivious kid that he is not a good cricketer; and there is nothing wrong with those same boys accepting him on the team when he is a good cricketer. It is a different and important kind of friendship. Second, Dennis and Judy are not unconditional friends, either. David loses their friendship at his birthday party, and it is a dodgy situation. All the boys from the prep school cricket team have been dropped off by mothers and the boys are having a great time in the living room, when Judy knocks on the front door with a present and hopes of joining the party. David says thanks but no thanks. Who wouldn’t!? She had not right to arrive at a birthday party uninvited and expect to be asked in to join a dozen rowdy boys. Then her family closes ranks and ostracizes David as if he was a racist or a traitor. If you are a critical-thinking adult, this will bother you as yet another weakness in the movie. If you are in your early teens, you probably won’t be thinking that perspicaciously about Wondrous Oblivion, and the good acting and ready lessons will carry the day.