Common Sense Note
Parents need to know that even if kids were interested in this subtitled German film, it's not for them. Set in the oppressive world of communist East Germany in the 1980s, it features psychological cruelty (including interrogation tactics like sleep deprivation) and one unexpected, violent death. A character's suicide prompts discussion about the government's efforts to cover up suicide rates in East Germany during the 1980s. There's also some fairly mature sexual material (a couple undresses and kisses in preparation for lovemaking, a man has an interlude with a nude prostitute, a government official crudely gropes a disinterested woman). Characters smoke lots of cigarettes and drink liquor.
Families can discuss how a government like the one in the movie -- characterized by surveillance and lack of free speech -- affects its citizens. How do the characters' surroundings mirror their internal states? How does Wiesler change as he listens to life in Christa-Maria and Georg's apartment? How can you tell his attitude is shifting? Would you consider this movie a thriller, a drama, or both? Why? How do you think it would be different if it had been made in America?
Common Sense Review
Reviewed By: Cynthia Fuchs
Taut and intelligent, Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck's THE LIVES OF OTHERS (Das Leben der Anderen) examines the effects of oppressive government tactics on those who are monitored and those who do the monitoring. The German nominee for 2007's Best Foreign Language Film Oscar, the movie is set in 1984 East Berlin, where Gerd Wiesler (Ulrich Mühe), a captain in the East German Ministry for State Security (Stasi), believes that his work is crucial in maintaining order.
Wiesler's faith is put to the test when he gets a new assignment: to observe playwright Georg Dreyman (Sebastian Koch) and look for proof that he's not as loyal as he seems. After Wiesler's team sets up an elaborate system of hidden microphones in the artist's apartment, the captain spends weeks in the building's attic, wearing his headphones and reporting everything he hears. In the course of his surveillance, Wiesler discovers that Dreyman's live-in actress girlfriend, Christa-Maria Sieland (Martina Gedeck), is cheating on him with the odious Minister Bruno Hempf (Thomas Thieme), who threatens to ruin her career if she doesn't submit to him.
Though Wiesler's take on the situation begins to diverge from his superiors' as his sympathy for the couple grows, he knows how to cover his tracks. And so he finds himself at the center of a swirl of deception. Seeing in the artists a new sort of faith, a commitment to passion and compassion, Wiesler doesn't so much doubt his previous convictions as rationalize his new belief. To boil it down to the most basic level: Art transforms him.
But more complexly, Wiesler develops a relationship of sorts with Christa-Maria. And, gradually, her vulnerabilities begin to parallel his. Though he identifies with Dreyman (seeing in the writer a similar stoic intelligence and self-regard), Wiesler is mystified and quite enchanted by Christa-Maria. At one point, he approaches her in a bar. He pretends to be a fan of her stage work; she tells this naïve "believer" that "Actors are never who we are." But he assures her that she is the person he sees, insisting that "I'm your audience."
Wiesler, with Christa-Maria's help, sees himself both as a performer (for Hempf and the other officers) and as an audience member who creates meaning -- translating, assessing, and shaping the lives of others so that they accommodate his own expectations, even as such expectations are, he sadly realizes, shaped by still other "others."
Fans might also want to see Francis Ford Coppola's similarly themed masterpiece, The Conversation, or other films about Germany during the Cold War, including Good Bye Lenin!, The Legend of Rita, and Buffalo Soldiers, which focuses on U.S. solders stationed in Berlin.
Rate It!
| Content | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| CS | adults | kids | ||
Sexual ContentSeveral scenes show or suggest sexual activity. In the back seat of a car, a man gropes an impassive woman and undoes his fly as the driver watches in the rearview mirror; kissing and embracing between the primary couple; spy overhears a sex scene (viewers see its beginning) and records it in his journal; another somewhat steamy sex scene between primary couple; man hires prostitute (brief scene of their interlude, with her in lingerie); woman naked in shower (viewers see back, profile, breasts). Sex is traded for safety from the secret police/government. |
 |
 |
|
|
ViolenceSecret police interrogations lead to torture (cries heard off-screen); discussion of a character's suicide (and suicide in general); a central character is struck by a vehicle (bloody body on street as onlookers show distress). |
|
|
|
|
LanguageIn subtitles: "s--t." |
|
|
|
|
Message |
|
|
|
|
Social BehaviorThe East German government spies on artists and other citizens in order to maintain control; effective interrogation techniques are discussed and praised; corrupt officials abuse their power to get what they want and make others fear them. But the movie also sends the message that the power of art and passion can transform a life. |
 |
|
|
|
Commercialism |
 |
|
|
|
Drug/Alcohol/TobaccoOne character has an illegal pill addiction; frequent smoking (the movie is set in Europe, and the year is 1984, when smoking was more common); drinking at several parties and in bars. |
|
|
 |
|
