Das Leben der Anderen

Spying in former East Germany feels startlingly real in the fictional German film Das Leben der Anderen (The Lives of Others). Directed by newcomer Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck (born in West Germany, though with East German family connections), the film is essentially a huis clos focussed on a Stasi or State Police Captain and the bohemian couple he is assigned to observe with the most modern means available, including wire tap, bugging and camera surveillance. Known for his expert interrogation techniques and also a teacher at the Stasi University, the Captain nevertheless falls under the spell of the couple and will decide to omit one apparently insignificant piece of information that will eventually snowball through the lives of not only the others, but especially his own. Not since Coppola's The Conversation has spying been so intensely and cinematically portrayed.

A man with a blank stare steps into a lift in an anonymous high rise in 1984 East Berlin. Just before the doors close, a football bounces in, followed by its young owner. The doors close. The lift starts moving. The little boy looks up to the man and asks: “Is it true you work for the Stasi?” The man snaps back, like the expert interrogator the audience has come to know him: “Says who?” to which the young boy answers: “My father”. Not missing a beat, the man continues: “So, what is the name of…” before stopping mid-sentence. “Of what?” the boy wants to know. A few seconds of silence. “Of your football?” the man asks with incredulity in his voice, as if he cannot quite believe those words just left his mouth. “You’re crazy!” the boy says, “Footballs don’t have names!”
This small gem of a scene, not even two minutes long, are the first cracks appearing in the outer veneer of the much-respected Stasi Captain, a staunch defender and teacher of state spying in East Germany, several years before the fall of the Berlin Wall. His name is Hauptmann Gerd Wiesler or HGW XX/7 (played by an exceptional Ulrich Mühe) and though he is the one observing others in Das Leben der Anderen, the film is squarely about him. It is a character drama that foregoes all the pyrotechnics of flashy thrillers and high-strung spy mysteries for something that gets under the skin. It is the type of highly intelligent character drama that passes through the brain before reaching the heart.

Wiesler is assigned – at least partially by his own doing – to literally keep an eye and an ear on celebrated playwright Georg Dreyman (Sebastian Koch, the Nazi Officer in Zwartboek/Black Book) and his live-in girlfriend, lauded actress Christa-Maria Sieland (Martina Gedeck, Bella Martha/Mostly Martha). Their bohemian existence seems to somehow fit with the party line and Wiesler cannot uncover any blemishes, until an incident involving Dreyman’s playwright friend Jerska (Volkmar Kleinert) will change both Dreyman and the man who follows his every move.

Technically, the film is polished and avoids the fixed-camera Big Brother aesthetic by softly gliding through the rooms to the notes of Gabriel Yared’s low-key but effective score. The beauty of Henckel von Donnersmarck’s script and direction is that he trusts the audience to pick up on the small changes and motivations in his characters, even if they are apparently inexplicable. The first time Wiesler realises that something dubitable is going on in the Dreyman household, he acts on an impulse and censors it from his daily report.

This small action will snowball through the rest of the lives of all of the characters, not only his own, but also that of Dreyman, and, more tragically, Sieland’s. It is unlikely that he would have allowed such a slip-up had he known beforehand where it would lead, but in that split-second of decision making, he has sealed his fate for years to come (an unsentimental epilogue set after the fall of the Berlin Wall shows how everyone’s lives have been affected by each other’s actions).

The film is long (it runs 137 minutes) but the rhythm never flags; the script is full of subtle mirror effects and references, and its themes only gradually surface, again trusting the audience with the material. One of the major themes is of course the play acting metaphor: actress Sieland and playwright Dreyman are in the business of make-belief, while Wiesler is on the opposite end of the spectrum, trying to find out the real feelings and intentions behind people’s public masks. In a police state, everyone is aware that a certain level of acting is necessary when in public, if only to avoid drawing attention to one self that might invite further scrutiny. Henckel von Donnersmarck’s film on the other hand is a work that can easily bear multiple viewings and an investigation of its characters and motives. In fact, it is exactly this denseness of storytelling that the rookie filmmaker carries off with such light grace that makes Das Leben der Anderen compelling.


La vida de los otros” de Florian Henckel Von Donnersmarck


La clave del filme alemán La vida de los otros aparece encriptada tras los músculos y los ojos del actor Ulrich Mühe, quien da vida a un oscuro (literalmente, gris) funcionario de la temida policía secreta de la antigua RDA, la Stasi. Al igual que el vampiro Nosferatu, su compacta figura se mueve entre las sombras camuflándose con las paredes; asimismo, GW se nutre para su subsistencia de las vidas ajenas, al carecer de una propia. Y, de este modo, por asimilación (las músicas, las lecturas, los sentimientos… de los otros), realiza un acto heroico y callado. Por otro lado, música (un exquisito score de Gabriel Yared) y protagonista aparecen en comunión directa, expresando aquello vedado para él. De seres alienados socialmente parece estar reflexionando el cine germano en la actualidad; hace poco, con motivo de la Seminci, hablaba de El cobrador de seguros, otro personaje masculino (el del título) errabundo y solitario.

Uno más de los aciertos de Das Leben der Anderen reside en la presentación de ese hombre-masa del Partido en las escenas de acción de la Stasi, humanos robotizados y eficientes que se comunican binariamente contabilizando minutos y memorizando clasificaciones tipológicas, ya sean de máquinas… o de personas. Recuerdan en mucho estas presentaciones de grupo a esos obedientes ejecutores de normas de los últimos Spielberg.


Sin embargo, hay otra vida de los otros, la conformada por la pareja de intelectuales que son espiados, que no pasa de lo anodino y lo superficial resuelto además con muy malas interpretaciones. A pesar de ello, a media película nos sorprende un viraje metanarrativo, cuando a la pin up morena (esto es, el objeto sexual, según clasificación del teórico Orrin E. Klapp) que, para más inri, es actriz, se la insta a tomar conciencia de sí misma, de dotarla de pensamiento además de carne.

Solo me queda decir, ya que se encuentra candidata al Oscar a mejor película extranjera frente a El laberinto del fauno, que deseo que gane esta, pues no hay color en la comparación, pese a la bellísima fotografía (no realista) del filme alemán.

Sinopsis: el capitán Gerd Wiesler es un oficial extremadamente competente de la Stasi, la todopoderosa policía secreta del régimen comunista de la antigua República Democrática Alemana. Pero, cuando en 1984 le encomiendan que espíe a la pareja formada por el prestigioso escritor Georg Dreyman y la popular actriz Christa-Maria Sieland, no sabe hasta qué punto esa misión va a influir en su propia vida.

Director y guionista: Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck
Productores: Quirin Berg, Max Wiedemann
Coproductores: Dirk Hamm y Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck
Dirección de fotografía: Hagen Bogdanski
Directora artística: Silke Buhr
Sonido: Arno Wilms
Vestuario: Gabriele Binder
Maquillaje: Annett Schulze y Sabine Schumann
Reparto: Simone Bär
Montaje: Patricia Rommel
Música: Gabriel Yared y Stéphane Moucha

Intérpretes:
Martina Gedeck (Christa-Maria Sieland)
Ulrich Mühe (capitán Gerd Wiesler)
Sebastian Koch (Georg Dreyman)
Ulrich Tukur (teniente coronel Anton Grubitz)
Thomas Thieme (ministro Bruno Hempf)
Hans-Uwe Bauer (Paul Hauser)
Volkmar Kleinert (Albert Jerska)
Matthias Brenner (Karl Wallner)
Herbert Knaup (Gregor Hessenstein)