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The Lives of Others review
:. Director: Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck
:. Starring: Martina Gedeck, Ulrich Mühe
:. Running Time: 2:17
:. Year: 2006
:. Country: Germany
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It's not hard to believe that The Lives of Others became an audience fave on the festival circuit as director Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck's debut mixes politics, art and morals in a sober mainstream film led by a strong cast.
Set in 1984 Berlin, The Lives of Others focuses on the moral struggle of a Stasi officer (Ulrich Mühe) who was given the order to spy on and frame a well-known playwright (Sebastian Koch) because a politician is trying to steal his actress girlfriend (Martina Gedeck).
Through inquisitor eyes, we follow the life of an artist who tries to find the right balance between the survival of his art and his political engagement, thus finding himself pressured by both his artist friends and the party, none of them clearly knowing where he stands.
The stasi officer is the subject of a similar dilemma after losing faith in his duty, and he slowly starts covering for the artist, thus putting himself at risk.
What makes The Lives of Others such an appealing work is that it manages to convey a message intelligently without being to pretentious about it. The filmmaker avoids over-dramatizing the ensemble where Hollywood clearly would have gone into full melodramatic mode. Instead of trying to make us cry, he's more interested in determining if art should sacrifice itself to its message and while he clearly states that everybody will be forced to choose a camp in the end, it's hard to determine where artists should stand. While art is a means of communication, should it abandon its aesthetic value to the only profit of its message? I certainly don't have the answer to this question and neither does the director, as the destiny of the Martina Gedeck character can attest.
Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck's direction is certainly strong for a debut, but he however fails at showing us motivations that would be strong enough to make the stasi officer become a turncoat. I have a hard time believing that somebody who spent his entire career framing people without real evidence would suddenly change after witnessing something that isn't just. Even falling in love with the actress wouldn't justify risking his life. At the Q&A following the screening, the director said that all the stasi officers he interviewed had no regrets whatsoever, still thinking what they had done was right, which seemed to confirm my feeling here.
Despite that flaw, The Lives of Otherss, which is somewhat in the vein of old-fashioned pictures such as The Shadow Army (L'Armée des ombres), has all the ingredients to become a foreign film classic in mainstream circles and this is one of the rare cases where you shouldn't feel guilty about being voyeuristic.
Fred Thom
 Movie Reviews: European Films
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