>>PREVIEW
THE LIVES OF OTHERS
STARRING Ulrich Muhe, Sebastian Koch and Martina Gedeck
DIRECTED BY Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck
Opens Friday, March 9
Uptown Screen
"Nothing is private, nothing is sacred." Printed on the North American poster for the German hit The Lives of Others, this phrase might’ve been better suited to an erotic thriller about a randy priest rather than a sombre, intelligent thriller about love, surveillance and betrayal in East Berlin. But director Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck believes that it points to a core truth in his new film.
"As soon as the state has the right to reach into any field of life, it will destroy everything," he says in a recent interview in Toronto. "I think the phrase they chose for the poster is a very good catchphrase because what it actually says is that some things should be sacrosanct. Private lives or sex lives or people’s opinions on politics or whatever – it’s nobody’s right to know these things. Of course, a totalitarian state sees that differently."
In The Lives of Others, that state is the decaying, deeply paranoid Communist government of East Germany, a place where trust cannot exist. By 1984, the year in which the film is set, hundreds of thousands of people are in the employ of the Stasi, the secret police that closely monitors the activities of the citizenry. Of particular interest are playwright Georg Dreyman (Sebastian Koch) and his actor girlfriend Christa-Maria Sieland (Martina Giedeck). Though they have been careful to stay on the good side of government censors and bureaucrats with art that never rocks the boat too hard, they are nevertheless targeted after a high-ranking politico develops amorous designs on Christa-Maria. Hauptmann (Ulrike Muhe) is the impassive surveillance specialist who is assigned to bug their apartment, but he gradually loses his objectivity as he realizes just how pernicious and cancerous the Stasi’s influence has become.
The product of five years of work and research into a time most post-unification Germans preferred to forget, The Lives of Others is one of the most decorated European movies of recent years, winning seven German Film Awards, a trio of European Film Awards (including a best film win over Volver and The Wind That Shakes the Barley) and an Oscar win for best foreign language feature. Since most German financers and distributors originally passed on it – one even asked him to rewrite it as a comedy, hoping for another Good Bye, Lenin! – the success is a great vindication for Henckel von Donnersmarck.
The 33-year-old filmmaker’s parents originally came from East Germany and he often visited the country as a child. His early impressions made an indelible impact. "I mainly remember encountering fear," he says. "Experiencing adults in fear is not something all kids get to experience. Normally, adults will pretend they’re in control of a situation. At an early age, I learned to recognize what fear looks like in people’s faces. I think that made it easier for me to direct that in actors later. I really think that the more things you experience as a child the more you’ll be able to navigate complicated psychological experiences as an adult – it’s just like learning a language. Maybe people should be grateful of difficult childhoods in some ways – at least they learn something!"
The cause of all that fear is clear in every scene of his steely, haunting film. Yet the sheer immensity of the Stasi bureaucracy reveals just how difficult it is for any country that seeks to purge its populace of any and all thought crimes. "After the army general Erich Mielke came to power as head of the Stasi in 1957, he increased his man force every year," says Henckel von Donnersmarck. "He kept pushing for more people until he reached that crazy number of 300,000 people. That was the largest secret service in the history of mankind, in a country of only 17 million. When the wall came down, there was this rally cry of ‘Stasi in der Produktion!’ That translates as ‘Stasi has to become productive,’ meaning they should start contributing to the economy instead of just eating it up. Can you imagine a country in which 300,000 of your most skilled people produce nothing?"
Yet the director also argues that the communist regime was very different than the society it superseded, the Stasi becoming another kind of monster than the Gestapo were. "The more I researched," he says, "the more I saw that these people were actually trying to define themselves against the Gestapo, even though they became a pretty horrible mirror image of it. The Gestapo recruited Teutonic thugs who were willing to commit acts of violence – they would be chosen on the basis of who could really smash in some poor grandma’s face without blushing. But the Stasi didn’t break bones – they broke souls. That’s a great difference."
In place of the "strong strapping lads" of the Gestapo came men like Hauptmann, whose true skills lie in getting subjects to destroy themselves – a horrifying process to witness in The Lives of Others. "Neither group had any real scruples," notes Henckel von Donnersmarck, "but the Stasi were far more sophisticated and intelligent. I think that’s why a tale about the Stasi is more relevant to our present life than anything about the Gestapo. I think we all know the things that the Stasi stands for. We all fear people who don’t respect our privacy and have the ability to invade it." |
Copyright ©2007 FFWD. All rights reserved.