fine drama despite a gaping hole in the screenplay

Rating: 8/10 (25 August 2007)

It seems somehow appropriate that "The Lives of Others" should be set in 1984, since it takes us to a world where George Orwell's fictional Big Brother has become an all-too-real fact of everyday life. The place is East Germany, five years before the fall of the Berlin Wall, where not just every action but virtually every thought can be surveyed and monitored by the secret police agency known as STASI. As self-appointed "voices of the people," artists suffer an even more intense level of scrutiny than the average, everyday citizen. As a result, many of them have either fled the country, committed suicide, or compromised their artistic vision in exchange for security and safety. Georg Dreyman, a successful writer and dramatist, has chosen the latter course of action, towing the party line in his works better than most of his fellow artists. Nevertheless, Wiesler, a security agent with STASI, suspects that Dreyman may not be quite the ideological purist Wiesler's fellow officers believe him to be (Wiesler may also be motivated by the fact that he is attracted to Dreyman's beautiful girlfriend, a well-known stage actress named Christa-Marie Sieland, and, thus, has reasons of his own for wanting Dreyman out of the picture). To confirm his suspicions, Wiesler has Dreyman's apartment bugged so that he and Sieland can be kept under surveillance twenty-four hours a day. After awhile, however, Wiesler begins to soften in his stance towards Dreyman and, before long, he is betraying his own vows to the state by whitewashing his official reports on the writer.
Within this historical context, "The Lives of Others" provides a chilling portrait of what life is like under a totalitarian regime. It shows the dehumanization that occurs when freedom of thought and expression become anathema to a society, and the untenable paranoia that develops when one must live in constant fear of betrayal from stranger, acquaintance and loved-one alike.
Interestingly, the two main characters in the film share very little screen time together, yet they are intricately linked in their roles of the observer and the observed. Dreyman is a man willing to go along with a system he knows to be wrong, partly out of fear, but partly too out of a sincere belief that nothing he can do, even as an artist, will ever really change things. It isn't until a close friend of his, a "blacklisted" theater director, decides to take his own life rather than to live with the oppression that Dreyman wakes up from his lethargy and takes a proactive stance against injustice.
Wiesler has a less clearly defined moment of epiphany, and this strikes me as being one of the very few weaknesses of this otherwise extraordinarily fine film. If Wiesler has a literary antecedent, it would have to be Guy Montag, the fire-starting protagonist in Ray Bradbury's "Fahrenheit 451." Like Montag, Wiesler is a gung-ho advocate of a regressive regime, eagerly performing his duty of stamping out what he believes to be seditious and subversive elements that threaten the stability of the society. But whereas Montag has his unmistakably paradigm-shifting moment while reading "David Copperfield," Wiesler has no comparable event to explain his 180-degree turnabout in outlook. He just suddenly goes from being Dreyman's bitterest antagonist to his greatest protector and champion without a whole lot of explanatory detail to go along with the change. It's difficult for us to accept the fact that a man would suddenly turn his back on everything he's dedicated his life to without at least a vaguely articulated reason for doing so.
As Wiesler, the late great actor, Ulrich Muhe, leaves an indelible mark in his portrayal of a man whose cold, emotionless surface may be more the product of his environment than a reflection of the true man at the core of his being. In a largely nonverbal role, Muhe is forced to convey much of his character's thoughts, feelings and emotions through his piercing eyes and tightly pursed lips. Sebastian Koch brings a remarkable subtlety to the role of the writer, while Martina Gedeck as his girlfriend, and Ulrich Tukur as Wiesler's hardnosed superior deliver excellent performances as well.
In her film-making debut, Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck brings both a stunning attention to detail and a strong sense of atmosphere to her work. Given the repressive environment she is portraying, Donnersmarck wisely holds back on delivering grand sentimental gestures for most of the film - which makes the climactic moments all the more heart-wrenching and devastating when they finally arrive.
In this age of ramped-up fear and paranoia - and the increased scrutiny and surveillance that come along with them - "The Lives of Others" serves as a stark reminder of the things we lose when we give up our freedoms.