The Lives of Others

[bryant]

I don’t really care about the Oscars anymore, thanks to Forrest Gump. However, I’m still capable of getting curious about the winners, and if Best Foreign Picture didn’t go to Pan’s Labyrinth, a small part of me wants to know why.

In this case, The Lives of Others just happened to be a better movie. Not by a huge margin, but I have no complaints about the Academy’s decision in this case.

It’s about two intertwining lives; that of Gerd Wiesler, a Stasi agent, and that of Georg Dreyman, a playwright. One watches the other; the other performs, unknowingly, for the one. The third actor in the drama, Christa-Maria Sieland, is a pivot point for everyone else in the movie. Her choices create the context in which the others…

Fail to meet, because they don’t ever really. But it’s her actions which bring Wiesler to reconsider his life as a watcher, and which bring Dreyman to idealism and subversion.

Despite the humanistic, nearly redemptive ending, I have to think of this movie as a tragedy. You have — well, five interlocking wheels of motivation, albeit the three mentioned are the major ones, which drive inevitably towards a tragic ending. There’s a coda, after the Wall falls, but it isn’t anything other than bittersweet.

Originally published at Imaginary Vestibule.

Comments

[peaseblossom.livejournal.com]

I heard an interview with the director on Fresh Air which really made me want to see this movie. Glad to know it's good.

[princejvstin.livejournal.com]

Hunh. The Movie Maven for Minnesota Public Radio counseled walking out of the theater...


I have an odd request. You need to trust me on this. If you go see The Lives of Others this weekend (and you should,) leave after "the steaming scene." I don't want to give away the end, just remember "the steaming scene" and you'll be fine. Now, normally I don't recommend walking out of good movies before they end, but "the steaming scene" is the end of the good movie. If you stay, the hokey finale betrays the fascinating, grim and funny two hours that precede it.

[bryant]

We all have opinions. :)

I know why he said that. I don't agree with it -- I found the end tremendously touching, but I get it. The thing is, I think it's necessary to complete the circle of audience and performer. It's... thematically important in ways I'm writing circles around in order to avoid spoilers.

It is also, in some ways, very hokey.

[michele-blue.livejournal.com]

I think the ending perfectly suited the story, though, like Bryant said, I can totally see why the NPR reviewer said as he did. For me, the ending closed one circle in the movie. Just one, and not an overwhelming, sappy one. But it was great to see that one circle closed.

[eyelessgame.livejournal.com]

I did always think Forrest Gump was tremendously overrated; my sense was that the movie was simply a remake of Being There where the audience wasn't in on the joke.