Das Leben der Anderen - Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck
Plot synopsis :
In 1984, the successful dramatist Georg Dreyman and his longtime companion Christa-Maria Sieland, a popular actress, are big intellectual stars in the socialist state. One day, the Minister of Culture becomes interested in Christa, so the secret service agent Wiesler is instructed to observe and sound out the couple, but their life fascinates him more and more...
A debut effort from the director Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck, this film was one of the most highly praised films in Europe in 2006 (along with Almodovar's "Volver") and it got nominated for the Oscar in the foreign language category (while "Volver" didn't). I honestly don't see what all the fuss is about. A potentially very powerful subject was destroyed (or rather watered down) by the back story played by two of actors that never should have left TV. Or maybe I've just seen too many bad German TV projects. The director completely failed to portray the culture of fear that the German Intelligence Service (known as Stasi) was enforcing in the German Democratic Republic. The couples story seemed meandering, cheesy and ultimately very unpersuasive.
The only semi-interesting aspect of this film is the Stasi spy. A very lonely individual and once an unquestioning re-enforcer of the socialist doctrine, cooked up in a loft while spying on the couple, he immerses himself in their life so much that he ultimately forgoes his task. I wish they had worked on his side of the story more, explored his loneliness a tad more instead of dealing with the pretentious babbles of Dreyman and his partner whose character depth is that of the shallow end of the kids swimming pool. Or maybe that was the point, maybe she was supposed to be a weak, spineless woman with serious low self esteem issues which ultimately leads her to betray her husband and commit suicide. On paper it sounds compelling doesn't it? Well it's not.
Perhaps my peeve was with Dreyman and the fact that his story-line got so much attention despite his character being dull and unconvincing. A simple comparison with Almodovar will suffice; at the beginning and the end of the film we are shown was is supposed to be a part of Dreyman's play, and while the general aura surrounding Dreyman is supposed to be that of a brilliant playwrite, you are left with a bitter taste because it is painfully obvious that that part of his character is stretched to the maximum; the play (or bits of it) is utter, amateur rubbish. Now take Almodovar's "Hable con ella" or better yet "Todo sobre mi madre" as an example of how combining the theatre and cinema is
supposed to be done.
If it wasn't for the extremely cheesy ending, I might have thought this was a good film. If Pan's Labyrinth loses to this celebration of averageness, well what am I saying, I wouldn't be surprised at all.