The Lives of Others
I waited for a long time. There is something uncomfortable about people making films about the country that you grew up in, especially facing the fact that its social formation does not exist anymore. The Lives of Others is a much-hyped film about East Germany, the country where I lived for twenty years. The central character of the film is a fabulous actor and it speaks certainly for the director to depict him as a nuanced human being. But just like with Good Bye Lenin and other films about the ex-GDR, this too cannot avoid but being a deeply ideological film. The type of reality depicted in The Lives of Others was indeed the everyday life of very visible cultural figures. The Eastern European republics took their intellectuals seriously.
These public intellectuals did fall victim to the kind of surveillance described in the film. People like Wolfgang Bierman and others were exposed to the most excruciating Stasi campaigns aimed at destroying their reputation. The Life of Others is perhaps the first film about a Stasi officer. It is problematic that the film narrowly focuses on such a case as many viewers may be led to think that this all-out surveillance was pervasive throughout East German society. It was not.
I was harassed a lot as a youngster in East Berlin. The Stasi did not like my flirt with the evangelical church and they tried hard to cut me loose from that. I had my fair share of Stasi surveillance and face-to-face encounters but I can say with conviction that none of them would have ever worn a leather coat of the SA-variety as portrayed in the film. That is simply a caricature. I met very genuine believers who were not just careerist cynics drunk on power as shown in the film. I got to know people who deeply believed in humanistic values. So, while this stylistically conventional film is not a complete misrepresentation, it selects an example that does not show the quotidian reality of East Germany.
The director shaped the character of the Stasi officer and sought a human balance. The historical example that is given, however, is in and of itself not balanced.
[Trebor]
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