Film Review: The Lives of Others

The Lives of Others.  Written and directed by Florian Henckel von Donnersmark. (2006) Starring: Sbastian Koch; Ulrich Muhe; Martina Gedeck.

 Daily Life in a Police State

This film takes us back to 1984 in East Berlin in the GDR, where the lives of ordinary people are overseen by the state police, the Stasi.  A virtual Orwellian state exists to watch over the people to insure that no one deviates from the party line, and that no one escapes to the west.

One of the bureaucrats in the Stasi, Captain Wiesler, is assigned to eavesdrop on the lives of a playwright, Georg Dreyman and his girlfriend, Christa Maria, a well-known actress.  This couple are successful in the artistic world of the GDR but constrained in what they can write. The actress, unbeknown-st to her lover, is being sexually abused and blackmailed by a high government official.

Listening In on People Who Have a Life

The fascination of this film comes from watching the Stasi officer, Captain Wiesler, as he secretly carries out his surveillance of this loving couple. This very repressed man, with no life of his own, listens to every detail of their conversations.  As he does so, he comes to admire, perhaps to love them.

The Dawning of Conscience

A turning point occurs when a beloved friend of Dreyman, a blacklisted director, suicides.  Dreyman pours out his grief as his plays Beethoven on the piano. Soon he involves himself with friends writing a piece on suicide in the GDR for the western media on a smuggled typewriter, his first act of political defiance.  Wiesler listens to all of this from his aerie and covers up what he is hearing on his written reports to his superiors.

Events unravel tragically from there, but not before Wiesler acts with unexpected generosity to save the two people who are now caught in the snares of a trap laid by his superiors at Stasi.  This is all the more unexpected because he has never actually met them. And he suffers drastic professional consequences for this one act of human compassion. Five years later the Berlin Wall falls and the GDR is no more.

Connection with the “Other” is Life Changing

This is an important film because of the connection with “other”, with the person or group we label as different from us.  As Captain Wiesler finds out when he dares to open himself to the other, he begins to like the “other” and eventually to care deeply about them. He is changed.

Dare to Connect!

The heart of peacemaking is building a human bridge to someone who thinks, speaks or acts very differently than we do. That person may be in our families, in our workplace, in our town or in another country. You don’t have to go across the planet to begin listening to people (though that’s a great thing to do). Start where you are.  Listen to that difficult relative in your family. Begin a conversation with the Republican at work or that person who belongs to an organization you disdain. Forget about your own agenda. Just listen. Inquire. Learn.  Build a human connection.