JimBell Blog

The Lives of Others

Under discussion:
The Lives of Others (2007)

Under discussion:

The Lives of Others (2007)

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.

posted on Thursday, August 30, 2007 8:55 PM by JimBell

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leeroy711
Posted Friday, August 01, 2008 12:19 PM

Great review, I actually think that the fact that the characters in this film were not black & white, good & evil was more of a commentary on how staunchly evil the philosophy behind the actions were. That is, if the tactics, methods and overall mentality of the Stasi were truly just and good, it would not have caused such a harsh personal conflict for the people responsible for enforcing those methods and tactics. This is the reason that socialism has always come with a heaping side order of propaganda.

rjsprague
Posted Thursday, August 30, 2007 9:40 PM

If there is one thing I've learned it is that people gain the amazing ability to read more into a piece of art than is actually there. Of course perhaps what we see here is that viewers/critiquers shape the perception of art, whether the art should bear such mandhandling is an interesting issue. Regardless, it would seem that this film is worth watching, and so I shall add it to my list.
Thanks for you review. :)

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