The Lives of Others [DVD] [2006]

Everything about this film achieves perfection. The oppressive political regime is cleverly portrayed through a combination of the lack of speed and lightness in the interactions, even the furniture and scenery feels heavy. The weight of this stillness is portrayed in the face and movement of characters, most notably the Stasi Officer who dominates this film. Not for a single moment do we forget that all of the characters fear that the state has complete control over all, that no one is safe, and scrutiny can and does fall upon anyone without any provocation. In the midst of this tension, artists struggle to achieve their potential and to maintain integrity. We quickly have the impression that it seems natural to maintain a certain level of distrust in intimate relationships, as the Stasi have ways of threatening what is held most dear to an individual if they want information to be given or kept from somebody. Watching this film feels experiential somehow. The multiple levels of the story transition seamlessly as we move between the mindset of those who seem to believe in and promote the regime, and those who are seeking to enjoy the relationships with those around them whilst protecting their rights to achieve and even to work. We understand more about how toxic and pervasive this is by the way the actress CM forces herself to comply with the vile actions of the official who pursues her. The understated script and direction of her character, as well as that of her playwright boyfriend when he learns of and addresses it tells us more powerfully of the complete control of the state than any loud and voluble outpouring of emotion could be. Both characters epitomise dignity within despair. I haven't said much about the Stasi officer. His storyline illustrates the power of art to transform belief. In a few simple shots of him eating alone and his bureaucratic diligence when seeking to observe others, we understand him to be a lonely character. We begin to appreciate his developing sense of connection to his subjects, and see that he seems to care. Music and literature have a role in his awakening humanity. It is the treatment of the actress by his senior which appears to shift the ground from under his feet. We see that his ethical core has awakened and shifted. I am not going to detail the closing half hour of the film so that others may enjoy the inevitability of events unfolding.....we begin to appreciate how his actions to protect begin to inadvertently cause harm...and we see that his transformation begins to threaten his position and status. This actor was perfectly case. His face is especially haunting in one particular shot. Very very powerful. I have to say, as it is so very rarely achieved, that this film has a truly perfect ending.

1984 is an inauspicious date for the setting of this fine movie about the East German autocracy. Whereas films like 'Goodbye Lenin' inspired a trend of nostalgia (coined as OSTalgia) for the GDR, 'The Life of Others' paints a more realistic picture. In a thoughtful, humane work, Stasi captain Gerd Wiesler is given a surveillance mission to spy on playwright Georg Dreyman and his actress girlfriend Christa-Maria Sieland. Weisler is an unquestioning party loyalist and cog in the Stasi machinery who takes pleasure in his thorough and exacting approach to such a mission. A dilligent professional, he is certainly not a sadist, but simply an automaton who divests emotional responsibility in the careful pursuit of his work. There is a brilliant early scene at the theatre where he is given his mission. Sitting in the Gods you are made privvy to the global perspective of a surveillance expert, the professional pleasure in his cold assessment of the situation. However, in a plot with shades of Francis Ford Copolla's masterpiece The Conversation, he find himself slowly drawn to the couple and ultimately implicated in their fate. Although it could also be suggested that there is a hint of 'Rear Window' about the story, Weisler's gradual softening of perspective is less Hitchcock-style obsession or voyeurism but rather about a lonely man warmed vicariously by the live and loves of others (hence the title). Georg and Christa-Maria's existence is one (un)governed by the senses, by friendship and romance. Their flat is warmly photographed as a haven of free expression, of literature, music and art. By contrast Weisler returns to his spartan appartment with only state propagandist television for company or entertainment. Furthermore, the soft warm tones of the couple's home is shown in stark opposition to Weisler's austere attic surveillance center, itself drained of almost all colour. Weisler chalks a map of the couples' flat on the bare floorboards of the gloomy attic, further illustrating his immersion in their lives but also his isolation from it. Brilliantly cast, Ulrich Mühe's Weisler has the emotionally fridgid and dispassionate features of a lobotomised Kevin Spacey. As his heart thaws, his expression softens in the subtlest of degrees, his marble eyes acquiring a human liquidity. In one scene, when Weisler weeps to the sound of Georg playing the piano, a tear erupts from his unchanged face as if the ice within him has melted. His emotional distance is also emphasised in another starkly lit scene in which Weisler has a brutally perfuntary encounter with a prostitute who makes it clear his time is on the meter. It's a understated masterpiece that - despite its sinister and ultimately tragic themes - doesn't resort to explicit violence or melodrama. It is also given levity by the subtlety of Ulrich Mühe's performance, and the humanity of the ending, which I won't spoil by divulging here.

This is a tremendously powerful film, & is now high on my list of favourites. I watched it twice in 48 hrs, & although I was profoundly moved by the first viewing, the second made even more of an impact, revealing nuances I hadnot fully appreciated originally. Earlier reviewers have praised the film eloquently, noting the superbly taut production values & mesmerising acting of the protagonists, as well as the pernicious logic & attention to detail of the GDR & not least, the small, redeeming moments of human goodness which make it so powerfully moving, so I will not further elaborate on these things. One thing that struck me: Weisler, the GDR officer at the core of the film, gradually finds his sympathies drawn towards the people he is spying on. But on my second viewing I saw it slightly differently. I believe his reason for suggesting surveillance was not unambivalently that he was suspicious, as he told his superior, but that from the moment he saw them in the theatre he was drawn to them. He has lead a lonely, narrow life, & it seems feasible to me that he experienced the first stirrings of a suppressed recognition or yearning as he gazed at the writer & actor at the end of the play, as they took their encores. He wanted to be them, or be like them. In effect & to use modern parlance, he began stalking them under the guise of surveillance, & unwittingly found himself more & more involved with them as a consequence. If you have not yet seen this film I urge you to do so. This is superlative cinema that you won't forget in a hurry.

Having recently had a trip to Berlin and going on several tours of museums and visiting historical sites I decided to purchase this DVD to get a further insight into the Stasi. This is a brilliantly written film and highlights the 'big brother - trust no one' nature. Exposes the human element perfectly of both the informant and one particular interrogater. Definitely worth purchasing. I normally find it difficult to watch movies with subtitles but this was great to watch without being distracted.

The film treats professional techniques of monitoring and controlling the behaviour of the citizens of a police state, East Germany, the German Democratic Republic. At the beginning we listen to a lecture on the interrogation of those suspected of deviation. The lecture is given in a large clean and attractive lecture room by a man, the anti-hero of the film, who speaks with the assured modesty of an expert. Around him young students take notes. In the film all the technicians are excellent at thier jobs; the recording engineers, those who hide wires in walls, those who tap into private telephone conversations are quick and efficient. The anti-hero is a niceish and very lonely man; his boss is nastier and more ambitious and the minister for whom they both work is very unatractive. The film is really about them. On the other side, as it were, are a writer of plays and his leading lady and thier talented friends. They are doing quite well in a system where deviation by an 'intellectual' is punished by professional death. One of the friends has just had his career cancelled and commits suicide. This, coupled with the minister's effective rape of the actress, leads the playright to engage in a deliberate act of treachery, by publishing anonymously in the West the statistics of suicide in the German Democratic Republic. He gets away with it because the anti-hero lets him. The film stresses in a quiet tone the everyday expectedness from an individual's viewpoint of the exercise of total political control down to the most private level by a one-party one-hierarchy system. The ordinariness of a complete lack of freedom is the context of the film in which both the hero and the anti-hero behave with great courage. It is a compelling account. The acting, expecially of the anti-hero is splendid.

Great story, great acting and a great no frills down to earth production. A really sad film that hits home how bleak it could be in East Germany. Also a good film to watch as we are being watched more and more just like the Stasi did to the East Germans. I could watch this film over and over. A very sage warning about loss of freedoms. German film can just be so good. A great film worth watching.

just seen this and its better then i expected. It draws you in and holds you captive within the tension of these peoples lives. its very tense in places, such as when Wiesler, the man who is watching Dreyman and Sieland, decides to start lying to the stasi. we feel for him as his plans to subtly help the writer and his actress girlfriend begin to fall apart as the evidence he gives instead of the truth fails to add up with information gathered by others within the system. there are moments when i felt completely disgusted by the corrupt nature of the governing officials and the bribes and threats used to ensure power and control, the best bit is how the minister uses Sieland - that was utterly horrid and fantastic and real as was her reaction! the film was very satisfying and sad to watch. i really liked the end. there is a definate sense of the passing of time, and how some things can change, but peoples deeply felt emotions often dont or cant. i like how the playwrite Dreyman doesnt descover the surveylance devices until a few years after the wall falls. the realisation and quest for knowledge is fascinating once he knows that he was being watched. when he eventually tracks down Wiesler there is another tense and emotional moment until the final scene which wraps it all up nicely. the best and worst thing about this film is that its based on the truth, the surveylance, the lies, bribes and corruption, the detailed information they gathered about people! fantastic!

Good film but only get the dvd if you don’t need subtitles- there is no option for subtitles or any language other than German. Instead get the Amazon prime one to have subtitles otherwise the film came in perfect condition and had no issues