Lives of others
Starring: Sebatian Koch, Martina Gedeck, Ulrich Muhe
Directed by Florian Henckel von Donners-marck
Motivation for writing this review are three fold, recently I started learning german
, this is one of the best german movie I have seen ( i have seen only 3-4 of them). Second reason was a review of it by outlook
http://www.outlookindia.com/full.asp?fodname=20080728&fname=Movie+Review&sid=1
Few days back I read a very lame revie of same movie by sudheendra kulkarni in indian express . it does not appear on goolge now but i found another review on indian express
http://www.indianexpress.com/story/334451.html
Further I also came across two revies of this movie in print media very mediocre , one in naidunia and other in Hindu.
Now here are my two cents
but before that some comments from IMDB. it is a wonderful forum and people come up with myriad explanations of things around them here
one of reader writes
"The film hardly portrays Weisler as "abruptly switching to a completely sympathetic man." In fact, it's a slow process that begins about 20 minutes into the movie, and what follows are at least 10 distinct experiences that influence Weisler's transformation. I won't go into all of them here, since I don't have the movie to refer to, but I'll sum it up.
It begins with Grubitz's undeserved promotion, which rightfully belonged to Weisler. Then seeing Christa-Marie on stage, which secretly captivated him. Brecht, Jerska's suicide, speaking with Christa-Marie at the bar, realizing Minister Hempf is using Weisler to spy on a rival suitor... you may not see any overt outward display of recognition in Weisler, but all of these things are having an effect on him. He compares his bland living quarters to Dreyman's warm apartment, compares his empty sex to their passionate love-making, and begins to question the validity of his life. Again, none of this is broadcast to the audience through dialogue or obvious plot contrivances. Outwardly, nothing about Weisler changes. He doesn't dance in the park, redecorate his apartment, or find true love of his own. He never even smiles. It is up to the audience to connect emotionally with the character, and to be aware of all the little moments that contribute to Weisler's change.
By listening in on the lives of others, experiencing people who are alive, passionate, in touch with emotion and feeling, Weisler is discovers his soul. It's an incredibly organic process that begins almost as soon as the film begins, and takes a period of months to come to fruition. I also think it's a poignant and unique way of approaching the subject of eavesdropping. See Coppola's "The Conversation" for a very different take on the same subject matter.
"Man does what's right and gets thanked for it" is greatly oversimplifying things. You could boil just about every film down to one trite sentence, but it wouldn't do justice to everything else that is going on in this film, including the cinematography, the score, the expressive and subtle performances, the sets, etc. This isn't a book, so plot isn't the only important thing at play here.
In this case, it's the way in which this man does what's right, and it's how he is thanked that makes for a world-class film. Weisler's one kind act does little to make his life better. For a time, it even makes it worse. After the fall of the Berlin wall, Weisler is still alone, still in a menial job, very much the same man he was before the events of the film. Georg Dreyman doesn't come running up to hug Weisler and thank him personally. They don't grab a beer and talk about their shared experience. Instead, Dreyman seems to know that these two can never be friends. He can't just say "thank you" and think that makes it alright. Something more must be done, and so he turns his experience into a novel about what it means to be a good man. You ask for something appropriately thematic at one moment, and then discount at another moment one of the most thematically appropriate scenes in the whole film"
well for me i have following comments to offer
1. Beautiful acting , good cinematography. we could make a similar movie in india though i doubt any regime in India ever went to this length.
2.To me very strong was the notion that perfectly normal people can be hooked to a system so bad. All of them seem to have a noble goal in mind to keep fascism at bay. They think that they should go for socialism as capitalism will ultimately lead to fascism. But in order to achieve this bigger goal they compromise on every small step and become enemies of their own citizen.
3. I believe that this is what is bound to happen in india. Hindu nationalists have a laudable final goal to save India from Islamic tyranny but in this quest they may damage Indian psyche also.
4. Once again one sees power of art in this movie. I think depsite all shortcomings our race has one distinct feature which makes our lives worth living i.e. pursuit of art forms. Artists in this movie like in real life are motivated to take risk and make society as they see in their dreams.
5. Corrupt minister who would have once started as an idealist but now is a cogwheel in system.
6. Rival officer of protagonist who is equally efficient and helps system on the plea of being honest to his job. I think this is very much relevant to my generation today when we shrug off our questionable role in perpetuating many wrong things by simply saying that we are just doing our job maybe we also need to witness lives of other to arouse that humane inside us.
