Inside Totalitarianism

Rating: 10/10 (4 April 2009)

This is totalitarianism. Finally a German young director understood and exposed the machinery of tyranny. This work resulted in the masterpiece of 2006: "The Lives of the Others". While the totalitarian system of DDR (the former Communist regime of East Germany) is the main character in the first half of the film, human characters emerge during the story. This is precisely the meaning of all this work: the individual rebellion of common people against an oppressive and collective society. This rebellion is embodied by a secret agent of political police (Stasi), one of the most loyal and respected social role in the former regime. His task: seek the enemies of the State. And destroy the personal enemies of "Vips" (oligarchs and ministers) in the ruling élite. To discover the "enemies", he has to enter their lives: no problem for a loyal agent. The problem begins when he discovers the humanity and the dept of his "enemies", when he has to spy the lives of two renowned artists: a theater comedian and his lover, a famous actress. And then he has to face a major change in his own life. But here stops the review, because I don't wanna make spoilers. Against all the "ostalgia" (nostalgia of DDR), this movie explain with clear and plain language that: there is no possible compromise between a totalitarian regime and a human life. "If Lenin did listen the Beethoven's Sonata for a Good Man he couldn't make the revolution" tells the main character in one crucial dialog. The regime imposed by Lenin's heirs encouraged all the worst traits of human character: fear, envy, lust for power, forced prostitution (intellectual and physical prostitution). In that context, the individual resistance was the only possible way to pursue the virtues of man.