Stasi a lesson to us all

Rating: 9/10 (31 March 2007)

It has been suggested that the story of Hauptmann Wiesler (Ulrich Muhe), a senior, dedicated and zealous Stasi East German (DDR) secret police officer who starts to empathise with the subjects of his investigation is rather improbable, but to me it rings true emotionally.
His subjects are Georg Dreyman (Sebastian Koch), a playwright currently in party favour, and his actress lover Christa-Maria (Martina Gedeck). Sooner or later, an inhabitant of the chill world of secret policing with no private life to speak of sent to investigate "artists" is going to feel the warmth and charm of the milieu he is spying on, especially where, as here, he soon realises that his superiors' motives for the investigation are corrupt.
Apologists for the Stasi (and given it employed 100,000 and had at least 200,000 informers these are numerous) say the DDR was a system that ran according to laws which were designed to protect society, but as is inevitable in totalitarian regimes the laws were perverted by those in charge to serve their own ends. Thus loathsome culture minister Hempf wants to get something on Dreyman so he can have the lovely Christa Maria all to himself, and Wiesler's slimy boss Grubitz is only too happy to oblige.
Wiesler's conversion from dedicated servant of the regime to furtive dissident is an amazing process to watch, and Ulrich Muhe, who happens to be an "ossi" (former DDR resident), makes it very plausible. Despite tragedy, the movie has a surprisingly upbeat ending. The complacent Hempf believes people don't change but this does not mean they are entirely predictable.
We see a fair amount of the Stasi at work. The rank and file are not portrayed as monsters, or automatons, just ordinary workers prepared to crack jokes about their masters at work. Most of what they do is minor harassment directed towards encouraging conformity. It is not hard to break the rules in a society where you need permission to subscribe to a foreign newspaper. It is an interesting irony that one of the catalysts of Wiesler's silent rebellion is the work of Bertold Brecht, at one time an enthusiastic supporter of the DDR.
Whatever you think of its politics, this is a very fine film, with not a single one of its 137 minutes wasted. It is certainly an antidote to the "ossie" nostalgia said to possess some residents of the former DDR and wonderfully satirised in "Good-Bye Lenin". But it also asks all of us how would we behave in similar circumstances. If it might be to your individual advantage (and to the disadvantage of your enemy) would you do it? The Stasi had even otherwise loving couples informing on each other. We can only hope that, despite our own overzealous secret policemen who are doing their best to undermine our civil liberties in the name of anti-terrorism, we never get to such depths in this country. I do hope Phil Ruddock (our Attorney-General) gets to see this movie.