>>REVIEW
THE LIVES OF OTHERS
STARRING Ulrich Muhe, Sebastian Koch and Martina Gedeck
DIRECTED BY Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck
Opens Friday, March 9
Uptown Screen
A voyeuristic glimpse behind the iron curtain in the late-’70s, The Lives of Others juxtaposes power against passion with magnificent results.
Set in Berlin during the reign of the much reviled Stasi, the government monitoring agency that kept up constant surveillance of its citizens, we are first introduced to one of its most efficient officers, Hauptmann Gerd Wiesler (Ulrich Muhe). With terrifying accuracy, he can deduce whether someone is lying by their phrasing and by how many times they laugh during an interrogation.
His detached realism is underscored by a sincere belief in the good of socialism and he is a thoroughbred patriot. Muhe is brilliant, conveying just the right amount of brisk efficiency. When he suspects one of the country’s most celebrated writers, Georg Dreyman (Sebastian Koch), may not be as loyal as he claims, Wiesler begins monitoring the writer’s home with deadly precision.
Initially he is less engaged than a voyeur, detached and brimming with ideological superiority. His gradual seduction to the ways of the artist is compelling to behold. When Dreymen plays the "Sonata for a Good Man" on the piano for his lover, Christa-Maria Sieland (Martina Gedeck), utterly unaware they are being watched, Wiesler’s tender response is breathtaking. With the soul of a romantic trapped in the body of a socialist, he ultimately proves humanism can overpower maliciously executed ideologies.
Gedeck’s performance is spellbinding – simultaneously fragile and defiant. Her undoing at the hands of a perversely greedy and soulless senior cabinet minister is one of the most painful moments of the film. Her deep and helpless understanding of the consequences if she resists is heartbreaking.
Cinematographer Hagen Bogdanski employs stark fluorescent lighting and casts a chilly eye on grimly utilitarian architecture. Everything about the state is shown as frigid and dim, lacking the humanism it so vehemently says is at the centre of its heartless policies.
In contrast, Dreyden’s residence is filmed with warmth and passion, bursting with objets d’art and crackling with emotion and creativity. The relentless tension and suspicion created by those who were meant to protect the people is surreal and almost unfathomable. Yet, somehow, writer-director Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck has created a vision of a not so distant past that is bursting with passion and humanism. |
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