He puts on the headphones, listens, takes notes. For days and nights, years in files later on. He is living the lives of Others, he is a Stagy spy in East Germany in the 1980s. He spies a writer and his actress-girlfriend.. and he keeps his eyes open. He is not watching, he is only listening..keeping his blue eyes wide-open, in an image of fixation of the life he would never have. He goes back home, to his empty flat, some rice and ketchup for dinner, and on the TV the propaganda of the ‘actually existing socialism’, where the state ‘must know everything’.
In the German film The Life of Others (Das Leben Der Anderen), the story fluctuates between the one who cannot live and the others who do not want to live. Yes, the film is indeed a strong political statement about the violation of civil rights and constant surveillance of artists and intellectuals, everyone in Socialist Germany, which somehow reminds of the present and our surveillance. But for me, the film is more about how even those who are supposed to live, cannot actually live- the writer and his girlfriend are never free to live, and this is not only because of the oppression and the ways in which the state dictates their actions. Both of them are incapable of living; she is ready to betray him or has already betrayed him from the start; he, a typical leftist intellectual (in a cynical way he reminds me of people in other countries in other times) is constantly undecided, whether he wants to act or not, whether he can live or not- none of the two actually lives. I felt no sympathy for either of the two characters tonight, while watching the film in an almost empty suburban movie theatre.
I did not feel sympathy for the one who is constantly watching them either; but I understood him. ‘The Sonata for a Good Man’ at the end of the film is an act of guilt I think- guilt of those who supposedly lived their lives, but ultimately were never ready to do so.
Definitely a good film but I would have preferred it if it was a novel- and the sounds and the images were only in the brain, as usually happens for anyone who is living the lives of others or (as someone I am starting to find out about) has no story of his own.
In the German film The Life of Others (Das Leben Der Anderen), the story fluctuates between the one who cannot live and the others who do not want to live. Yes, the film is indeed a strong political statement about the violation of civil rights and constant surveillance of artists and intellectuals, everyone in Socialist Germany, which somehow reminds of the present and our surveillance. But for me, the film is more about how even those who are supposed to live, cannot actually live- the writer and his girlfriend are never free to live, and this is not only because of the oppression and the ways in which the state dictates their actions. Both of them are incapable of living; she is ready to betray him or has already betrayed him from the start; he, a typical leftist intellectual (in a cynical way he reminds me of people in other countries in other times) is constantly undecided, whether he wants to act or not, whether he can live or not- none of the two actually lives. I felt no sympathy for either of the two characters tonight, while watching the film in an almost empty suburban movie theatre.
I did not feel sympathy for the one who is constantly watching them either; but I understood him. ‘The Sonata for a Good Man’ at the end of the film is an act of guilt I think- guilt of those who supposedly lived their lives, but ultimately were never ready to do so.
Definitely a good film but I would have preferred it if it was a novel- and the sounds and the images were only in the brain, as usually happens for anyone who is living the lives of others or (as someone I am starting to find out about) has no story of his own.
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No koumpara, I will have to disagree. Of course, "one can see different things in the same poem", but, as far as I and your koumapara are concerned ithis film is not about social systems! (Despite the words in the poster of the film.) Nor is it about the oppression of artists. (I hate that word tonight: Artist? All are phonies. The ones really worth the title are the ones who don't need it. Just like in the film!) This film is about the Truth (and the lives of others). And the German spy was wonderful. He had learned to obey the truth. Only that at some point he discovered that the real truth was something different than what he believed. He discovered his own personal truth which was disconnected from the beliefs of others. I thought it was a great film. I plan to watch it again.
N
yes I see your point my dear friend but I guess that my problem was that I found zero truth in the lives of others, i.e. the writer and the actress. So, I wonder whether the spy indeed had a moment of discovering the truth since I dont know whether there was any..but again, art as we have agreed many times in the past is about subjective taste!
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