Tonight at Gayle’s Chocolates…
Welllll, not *at* Gayle’s Chocolates, Actually, but just down the street. Gayle is in NYC tonight, on chocolate business, and would not count on us, totally, to close the store after-hours, after our discussion. (We would probably try to EAT our way out of her chocolate shoppe.) Sooooo…
We’ve moved down the street, this once, to the Home of one of our members.
Our film under discussion tonight is “Das Leber der Anderen” [“The Lives of Others,” in American.]
This film, written and directed by Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck, won the 2007 Oscar for “Best Foreign Language Film of the Year,” and won 61 other awards, as well.
We’ll have more to say about it here, in the next couple of days, but, meanwhile, here’s the review we wrote of “Das Leben der Anderen” after seeing it in-theatre in March, 2007…
FILM REVIEW: Das Leben der Anderen (The Lives of Others)
©A.J. Malouin 2007
(Rating: 2 by Caryl and 2 by Al)
(2006/USA. Directed by Henckel von Donnersmarck) Before the Fall, behind The Wall, playwright Georg Dreyman struggles to find an outlet for his art under the ever-watchful eyes (and even more so, EARS) of East Berlin’s GDR government. It seems as if everyone and everything in East Berlin is bugged by the Government. Everyone lives a life on the edge of a brink. Careers and worse are killt if the wrong word goes in the right ear. Amidst all this loverly paranoia and emotional greyness, the actress Maria Sieland shines brightly as the love interest for Dreyman. As one of the GDR’s most popular actresses, however, she has also caught the eye of Bruno Hempf, the oppressive government’s Minister of Culture.
Against her better judgement, yet not knowing what else to do, Sieland occasionally visits the Minister. She lives with Dreyman, yet occasionally is whisked away inside the Minister’s limousine.
Knowing her heart lies elsewhere while her body lies with him, the Minister longs to eliminate the popular playwright Dreyman as his romantic competition.
The opportunity to do so presents itself when one of the Minister’s ambitious stooges, Oberstleutnant Anton Grubitz, stops by to pay his fawning respects.
The Minister suggests that the Oberstleutnant can greatly further his career by “keeping an eye on this fellow Dreyman.”
The Oberstleutnant replies that he will put his people on it.
Abruptly on the heels of the Olberstleutnant’s pledge enters the hero of our film: Hauptmann Gerd Wiesler.
As one of the greyest inhabitant’s of this grey paranoid landscape, Hauptmann Wiesler is an expert at eaves-dropping on the lives of others. He is soooo good at it, and at interrogation also, that he runs the government’s classes on both these subjects, teaching others how to be as good as he is.
Wiesler and his subordinate Udo set up an elaborate eaves-dropping operation in the attic of Dreyman’s spacious apartment. They map out the entire apartment in chalk lines on the attic’s floor. They listen in on Dreyman 24/7 and keep elaborate notes, make elaborate tapes.
At first, Dreyman’s life is above governmental reproach.
He is a model citizen, in fact, writing plays that glorify the State’s Party Line without ever crossing over it, either on-stage or in real life.
Then, something changes. Dreyman’s best friend (other than his lover/actress Sieland!) is the director Albert Jerska. Albert has gotten sideways with the Government, and is no longer Permitted to direct stage plays. This situation eats at him continually.
One day that situation changes Albert’s life entirely.
When it does, his friend Dreyman becomes an enemy of the State.
As such, Dreyman gives Wiesler the ammunition he needs to look good with his supervisor Grubitz… who in turn can use that information to look good with the Minister…who in turn can use that information to remove his romantic competition for the loverly Maria Sieland’s heart and other parts.
What Wiesler decides to do with the information, however, is not what anyone is expecting him to do.
“Das Leben der Anderen” is a claustrophobic, paranoid, grey rendition of what we imagine life Behind the Wall must have been like in East Berlin. The camera angles, editing, set construction and art direction all paint a picture of quiet sullenness and desperation. Yet, somehow and somewhere, from alllll of this there springs a sprouting of Total Hopefulness. We know that The Wall is going to fall and that things are going to get better (mostly,) and we know this not from our history books (nor the internet!) but from the humanity of all the actors playing in this wonderful film. While not outrightly jocular, there is an overriding feeling of “better days ahead” amidst alllllll the greyness.
At the heart of this feeling is the performance by Ulrich Muhe, as Hauptmann Gerd Wiesler. Wiesler’s life is the greyest of the grey. His human nourishment with fellow beings originally consists of a clock-work session with an overweight prostitute with whom Wiesler never has the foresight to buy a little extra time, so that the two of them can converse afterwards.
Slowly, surely, and obviously to the entire audience, however, Wiesler is swept up in the lives of others, wanting peace, security and a decent outcome for the playwright and actress upon whom he is eaves-dropping 24/7.
To the extent that he can, he soon starts attempting to make the lives of these two others better and better. The unselfishness and sacrifice he eventually undertakes to improve the lives of others is uplifting, heart-warming, totally compassionate and human— and is all the more remarkable because it happens under thumb of a society which seems to be totally inhuman, uncompassionate, heartless and stifling.
“Das Leben der Anderen” is a celebration of what humans can achieve, no matter the situation. It is a wonderful film that is not to be missed, subtitles and all!!! (2 hr 17. Rated PG for “thematic elements, some violence and language. In German, with American subtitles. With Hans-Uwe Bauer as Paul Hauser, Matthias Brenner as Karl Wallner, Gabi Fleming as Prostituierte “Ute,” Martina Gedeck as Christa-Maria Sieland, Marie Gruber as Frau Meineke, Charly Hubner as Udo, Volkmar Kleinert as Albert Jerska, Herbert Knaup as Gregor Hessenstein, Sebastian Koch as Georg Dreyman, Ulrich Muhe as Hauptmann Gerd Wiesler, Thomas Thieme as Minister Bruno Hempf, Bastian Trost as Haftling 227, and Ulrich Tukur as Oberstleutnant Anton Grubitz.)