Das Leben des Anderen/The Lives of Others

Having first become aware of the Life of Others about twelve months ago, when it caused a sensation on its release in Germany, I had been choking to see it ever since. The debut feature of director Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck, both of whose parents were from the East, has pulled in film awards by the sackload since its appearance, including an Oscar this year for the category of "Best Foreign Language Film".

The UK papers have been full of the film for weeks, giving it largely laudatory reviews. Ludicrously, the Independent suggested on Saturday that this film was spearheading a "German cinema renaissance", the journo somehow having missed the likes of Goodbye Lenin!, Aimee and Jaguar, Der Untergang and Sonnenallee from the last few years alone. The only discordant note has been sounded by the author Anna Funder, who in this month's issue of Sight & Sound has suggested that the movie is "rotten at the core"- more on this later.

The film, at two and a quarter hours, is long on paper but is so absorbing that one barely notices the passage of time. The story revolves around the surveillance of Georg Dreyman, an East German playwright. On the surface, Dreyman is loyal to the regime, but Stasi Captain Gerd Weisler suspects he is somewhat different behind closed doors. Ulrich Muehe is absolutely brilliant as Wiesler, convincingly portraying a man emotionally crippled by his work and his fanatical faith in the SED. At the beginning of the film, we see Wiesler reprimand a student in one of his lectures for empathising with the plight of a prisoner; a black mark is instantly put against the hapless student's name. It was this very human empathy that the Stasi sought to suppress in themselves and in the "Lives of Others" that they spied upon.

Throughout the detail is very convincing. The night-time streets of East Berlin are deserted and dimly lit; dissidents have to go for a walk in the park to avoid having their conversations listened into; even then, the Stasi, comically represented by a man hiding behind trees in a vaudeville style way, are ever present. Even in the cars, von Donnersmarck's research is meticulous. Wartburgs and Barkas vans are prominently featured; the repulsive culture minister, Bruno Hempf, is chauffered around in a Politburo-issue stretched Volvo.

It is Hempf's scheming which provides the early drive behind the film. We are introduced to his character at the opening of Dreyman's latest play; it transpires that Hempf is obsessed with Christa Maria Sieland (Martina Gedeck), Dreyman's lead actress and real life partner. With the acquiesence of the oily, career obsessed Stasi Lt. Col. Grubitz, Hempf hatches a plan to incriminate Dreyman and hence clear the field, and make his relationship to Sieland more secure. Some of the most uncomfortable scenes in the film involve Hempf groping a clearly unwilling Sieland in the back of his ministerial limousine. In effect, the actress has to submit to his unwelcome advances so as not to have her career finished.

This is where Capt. Wiesler comes in, as he is assigned to bug Dreyman's flat and uncover evidence to imprison him, and banish him from the stage. A team of half a dozen Stasi agents is shown bugging every part of the house, using light switches as hiding place, within a very short space of time. That evening, the surveillance begins.

The climate of suppressed and never acknowledged fear in the DDR saturates the film. Dreyman's agonising conflict of loyalties between the DDR regime and his friends is the first; Sieland's fear of Hempf, the second; Grobitz's fear of failing to deliver the goods for his boss, the third. The only nerveless character in the film is Wiesler himself, who presumably has long ago forgotten how to feel anything, other than satisfaction at carrying out "the Party's task".


Sinister Wiesler tunes in above Dreyman's flat

As the surveillance develops two things happen. Wiesler's loyalty begins to crack, as he becomes aware of Hempf's advances towards Sieland. When he makes Grobitz aware of this, his boss peremptorily dismisses the information with the words "we can't spy on government ministers- don't write anything down, just report to me verbally.". The hypocrisy of the SED regime couldn't be made any clearer. Secondly, as he is privy to the most intimate details of Dreyman and Sieland's life together, with it's rich variety, it seems that his own emotionally poor and intellectually barren existence is thrown into sharp relief.

Dreyman turns against the regime when an old, close mentor, blacklisted for many years by the SED, hangs himself in despair. Together with colleagues, Dreyman pens a damning article on suicide rates in the DDR for the West German magazine Der Spiegel, and, in some very tense scenes, ensures that it is smuggled over the Wall and into print.

Wiesler is aware of all this, naturally, but he has chosen to suppress it, as he begins to file false and misleading reports to his bosses. Hempf, enraged at the Stasi's failure to find evidence, threatenes to have Grobitz put up against a wall, and in turn the Stasi Colonel begins to suspect that Wiesler is hiding something. By this stage, it is too late for him to recant; an admission of involvement in crimes ranging from republikflucht to having a damning article published in the West means that he is as implicated as Dreyman. there is no sense in which he does want to recant, however.


Grobitz watches Wiesler interview Sieland, through a two way mirror in prison

Sieland is eventually arrested after Hempf tires of her rebuff of him; the Culture Minster leaves instructions that she is never to appear on stage again. Bundled by the Stasi into a camoflagued Barkas "Fish Van", she is packed off to the notoriously grim Hohenschoenhausen prison, and undergoes a gruelling series of interrogations. Grobitz, by now convinced that Wiesler is in on Dreyman's crimes, orders him to interrogate Sieland, in one of the film's tensest moments. Sieland eventually gives away the location of the typewriter, on which the incriminating Spiegel article has been drafted, in return for being allowed to continue acting.

The climax of the film shows Dreyman's flat being flooded by Stasi agents, all choking to find the typewriter; we realise, however, that Wiesland has beaten them to it and removed the evidence. Sieland, unable to bear her treachery, runs from the flat and is knocked over and killed in the street. At the end of the film, were a shown a post-Wende Dreyman searching his Stasi files and uncovering the way in which Wiesler had protected him; at the end, hsi new novel is shown as dedicated to "HGW XX/7", Wiesland's Stasi code. In the meantime, Wiesler, demoted brutally, is shown working as a postman in reunified Germany.

This is film at its most compelling. The parts set during the time of the DDR are monochrome and have a kind of Kieslowskian bleakness about them; I'm not sure the last few minutes were necessary or terribly convincing, however. I think that the film would have been stronger if we had been left to wonder at the fate of Wiesler and Dreyman, and would have better ended with Wiesler's demotion. Nonetheless, it's one I shall definitely go and see again before it finishes, and no doubt will wear out the DVD in years to come.

Anna Funder's lengthy article in Sight & Sound readily acknowledges the film's strenghts, but suggests that it is "rotten at the core" for a number of reasons. Firstly, she argues, the film presents a false picture as there is no record of a Stasi officer ever having "turned" in this way. (this is very questionable- the last man executed in the DDR was a Stasi man accused of having "turned"). Secondly, she argues that the transition in Wiesler's character from ruthless and cold hearted spy to human is not convincingly presented. Thirdly- and most contentiously- she argues that the film, in presenting one Stasi man in a good-ish light, gives succour to those ex-Stasi operatives still organised in Germany, seeking a retrospective whitewash of their organisation's deservedly abysmal reputation.

To me her criticism is fundamentally wrong headed. This is not a documentary, and naturally there will be a departure from the reality as it was, to some extent. If we're being picky, we could also point out that suicides peaked in the DDR in the mid 1970s, and fell away after that, certainly long before this time period of this film (c. 1983-85). But it would be churlish and curmudgeonly in the extreme to take the director to task for that. Wiesler's character is also internally consistent; the process of his turning, from his disgust at the behaviour of Hempf, through his growing interest in Sieland, to the protection of Dreyman in order not to incriminate Sieland, seems pretty straightforward. Finally, it really is hard to see how this film could give credence to the Stasi veteran's claim to have "only wanted the best" for the people it spied upon.

The organisation is shown in its full loathsome extent. Wiesler, early in the film, tries to break up the relationship between Dreyman and Sieland, by subtly revealing Hempf's intrigues; friendships are tested; monumental psychological pressure is exerted on the poor vicitms of Stasi interviews; Stasi bosses and politicians are shown as venal, corrupt, self serving and contemptuous of everything and everyone but themselves. Funder's claim in this regard strikes me as similar to the hysterical Daily Mail articles claiming that Trainspotting would encourage people to take heroin. If someone really sees the Stasi in a better light after watching this then I really would be at a loss to understand it. If ex-Stasi members are harrassing victims and trying to rehabilitate themselves publically in contemporary Germany, then that surely is a matter for the German authorities to deal with, rather than this film or its director.

With this piece portrayals of life in the DDR move well on beyond the Ostalgie of films such as Goodbye Lenin!. It will be interesting to see what follows on from this, both from von Donnersmarck and from other directors.

The Lives of Others Official Website

Fascinating BBC discussion of The Life of Others

Rotten Tomatoes.com reviews of the film

Trabant