The Lives of Others

Official website; Sony Pictures Classics website
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Captain Gerd Wiesler of the Ministry of State Security, Stasi, is an expert interrogator and committed to the task of surveillance, zealous in protecting the DDR, the German Democratic Republic, from its enemies. At a performance of a play, his superior Colonel Anton Grubitz points out to him the Minister of Culture, Bruno Hempf, and to the main focus of the night, the playwright and author Georg Dreymann. Wiesler notes the vanity and arrogance of Dreymann, and is suspicious of him, while Grubitz responds by saying that Dreyman is the only non-subversive artist of the DDR, having received honors and favor from high ranking officials; nonetheless, he confirms that Dreymann is to be investigated.

Wiesler soon learns that the real reason for the investigation is that the minister wishes to have the actress Crista-Maria Sieland for himself and desires to eliminate his rival, Dreymann. Grubitz is all too happy to do what he can for a member of the Central Committee in order to rise higher in the ranks.

As Wiesler silently invades the privacy of Dreymann and listens in to his conversations, a transformation is slowly effected within him. The love between Dreymann and the actress and live-in lover Sieland is real, as is their passion for art. This is in stark contrast to Wiesler's own personal life, who is cold and detached from others, apparently having no real friends or personal contacts. He hires a prostitute, but hungers more for human intimacy and contact than the sex.

Wiesler realizes that the Party is an excuse for people to take advantage of others, Communism serves only to benefit the elites, the higher ranking members of the Party. His superior, Col. Grubitz, is interested only in being promoted, and will do whatever it takes. The State (and the Party as well) is a soulless abstraction, to which Wiesler has pledge his loyalty, but like the abstraction, Wiesler is devoid of life until he encounters Dreymann and Sieland.

Wiesler is slowly "corrupted" by the artists and by art -- by the music of the "Sonata for a Good Man"and a novel that he "borrows" from Dreymann and reads in his own apartment. While he is work for a government determined to monitor expression and to prevent the dissemination of "harmful ideas," he himself has become a captive of art and the beauty and truth that it conveys, offering a view of the world different from the official party line.

Wiesler's yearning for something truly meaningful conflicts with his loyalty to the State; he continues to serve as a member of the security forces and to monitor Dreymann, until he must make not just one decision, but a series, as to what he should embrace.

I tend to be a bit distrustful of artists, who tend to be leftists, but apparently artists who suffered in the Leftist experiment of Communism might be different in their worldviews and beliefs. One is at least sympathetic to their plight, and with their desire to speak the truth about the "human condition." (Especially if they wish to reveal what is happening under an unjust regime.)

The despair felt by artists who have been punished by the government is exemplified in the suicide of one of the minor characters. A quick death is preferable to a continued misery and suffering caused by being deprived of one's calling, one's purpose in life. After the death of his friend, Dreyman too must make a decision--whether he should unveil the truth about the system under which he lives and thereby honor the memory of his friend and all who have suffered, at whatever cost to himself and to Crista-Maria, or to continue living the "safe" and privileged life that he has had so far.

The movie does have some rated R material, but fortunately the sex scenes do not last long. (And despite their short length, they're still gratuitous.)

Recommended for its look at life on the other side of the Iron Curtain. Its theme about the use of art and beauty to inspire goodness in a Communist regime would no doubt be one that our late pontiff John Paul II would have appreciated, and I'm guessing that afficianados of von Balthasar would also enjoy it. While the morality of the artists is not totally unproblematic--after all they are unmarried, cohabitating and fornicating--this is somewhat minor in comparison to the points the movie is trying to make. (That Communist regimes, being officially atheistic, endorse the undermining of traditional morality and of the family, seems definite, but it also seems to be the case that European artists were at the forefront of such licentious behavior. Plus it also seems true that sexual morality had been on the decline in urban centers of Europe before World War 2.)

[Updated: I found out that the film did win the Oscar for Best Foreign Film last night.]

For EJK, from wiki:

Piano Sonata No. 23 (Beethoven), colloquially known as the Appassionata, is used as the main transformation point of the Stasi Agent Gerd Wiesler.