The Lives of Others Review

I found the movie The Lives of Others to be incredibly depressing and very reminiscent of 1984. It actually took me two sessions to get through the entire movie because I simply couldn’t sit through it all at one time. As difficult as it was to watch a dramatization, it was made worse by knowing that things of this caliber actually happened for so long on this large of a scale.

The plot is about East Germany before the fall of the Berlin wall, and centers around a Stasi agent named Wiesler who truly believed he was serving a greater purpose for his country. He teaches young Germans how to be proper Stasi agents for the GDR, and it struck me as odd that he even marks one of his own students for future monitoring for claiming that the methods used to force confessions and information out of people is “inhuman.”

His once-classmate, a moocher and political kiss-up named Grubitz, is now his chief officer. While watching a play written by East German playwright Dreyman, Wiesler asks to be assigned to monitor the man, believing that he is up to no good. Grubitz claims the idea as his own after the play ends and he goes to greet the minister Hempf and put in a good word for himself. Hempf of course believes Dreyman is up to no good, but it isn’t discovered until later that his interest lies not in any real evidence of wrongdoing against the GDR but rather that the minister is attracted to Dreyman’s actress girlfriend, Christa-Maria Sieland. Given consent, Wiesler leads a team to completely wire the whole of Dreyman’s apartment and sets up the monitoring command post in the disused and dusty top floor. He and his own underling Udo take shifts monitoring every moment in the house and recording it all in reports under the case name “Lazlo.”

Wiesler’s blind faith in the goodness of the regime takes its first blow from Grubitz’s dismissal of the relevant facts that Hempf is having some kind of affair with Christa-Maria and subsequent editing of the submitted typed reports from the first few days of constant monitoring. Over time he grows something of an emphatic connection with Dreyman and finds himself wanting to protect the man. There is no need for protection, however, until Dreyman’s director friend Jerska commits suicide over his blacklisting and subsequent treatment. This spurs Dreyman into action, which causes him to write an article for a West German magazine der Spiegel about the suicide rates in East Germany. The only part of the article that is ever given to the audience is a section on how one can find a record of absolutely anything in the GDR from the number of shoes one buys a year to the number of books one reads, but the number of suicides committed had ceased to be published as of 1970, when Hungary was the only country with a higher rate.

Wiesler directly intervenes to force Dreyman to become aware of Christa-Maria’s “relationship” with Hempf, although no one ever discovers the Stasi’s involvement. He later even gives Christa-Maria the moral support she needs to stop bowing down to Hempf in fear and for the sake of her career. When Dreyman starts actual anti-GDR propaganda, Wiesler manages to scale back the operation and get Udo reassigned before he starts falsifying all of the documentation on what is happening in the apartment. In the end his intervention is not enough because of a jealous and spurned high official who takes out his frustration by giving Grubitz information on Christa-Maria’s illegal medication. Put in detainment and without the moral support she needs, Christa-Maria cracks partially and gives the Stasi only bare bones of information incriminating Dreyman. The subsequent search finds nothing, but this tips Grubitz off that all is not well with his usually trustworthy ally Wiesler. To make amends, Grubitz forces Wiesler to interrogate Christa-Maria for the information necessary to finally imprison Dreyman.

When the information is finally revealed, Wiesler leaves immediately to hide the evidence away. The actress returns to Dreyman’s residence, now considered an informant for the regime, and is met by her concerned lover. Not long after, the Stasi appear pretending to have no idea of where the evidence is hidden only very briefly before moving to sign Dreyman’s prison sentence. Christa-Maria, however, cannot live with herself after having destroyed the only passion in her life and commits suicide by running into the path of an oncoming truck, unknowing of Wiesler’s interference. The Stasi’s career is over, however, because Grubitz knows for certain that Wiesler is the reason that nothing was found; there is no evidence and no way to prove it, so the best that Grubitz can do is demote his once top agent to mail duty for the rest of his life.

Years later, the Berlin wall falls and Dreyman subsequently discovers the fact that his house was wired with fulltime monitoring. Surprised and confused, he seeks out all of the case files and soon notices the anomaly that agent HGW XX/7 has covered all of his tracks and lied in the reports. Initially, he seeks to find and speak with the agent personally, having found the relevant information that he had a guardian by the name of Wiesler, but at the last minute he finds he cannot. A few years later he publishes his first novel since the fall of the Berlin Wall, entitled Sonata for a Good Man, and dedicates it “To HGW XX/7, with gratitude.” The movie ends with Wiesler buying a copy and, when the cashier asks if he wants it gift wrapped, the ex-Stasi replies “No. It’s for me.”

In the beginning I could only half tolerate Wiesler for his commendable work ethic but his naïveté about what was actually happening made it difficult for me to watch the movie through. I also found Grubitz and Hempf to have no redeeming qualities, although if I ever watched it again I might manage to see some. Granted, I don’t believe either man was intended to portray any positive qualities, unlike Wiesler, and since this is a movie it’s likely that any worthwhile traits have been edited out of their personalities to give them the ultimate “bad guy” vibe. I’m still conflicted about Christa-Maria because she wasn’t a very strong character but it felt like she broke too easily under threat. I never really formed an opinion on Dreyman, either, because he was really a flat character and his personality wasn’t one that changed dynamically throughout the movie.

This is the kind of movie I don’t like to think about because of what it really represents. Just like I absolutely hated 1984 when I read it, this movie irks me because of the maltreatment and simple disregard one human shows another. Living in a society where your opinion can get you locked up for years without any trial, where confessions are forced out under duress, and where fear is the most potent factor in normal people’s lives is a horrible concept to consider. Having no secrets makes anyone feel exposed and uncomfortable, even if there is nothing to hide. Movies like The Lives of Others make me uncomfortable in my own skin for days.