Das Leben der Anderen

The Lives of Others masterfully weaves an examination of human nature into the background of the late socialist era, whose spirit is recreated through the drab looks of the environment. The absence of color is expected because much of the story is intentionally set in winter time – but even so, I can sense the bleakness of socialist high-rise hives, places that many call home because it’s what they’ve always known, but places where it’s wise to trust no one, and even your own children are potential threats to your safety. Memories of discussions in my own family – before I was even able to understand what they were discussing – they would talk and then they would all look at me, and warn me never ever to tell anyone what we were talking about at home: the police could come and take them away. It was a place where five-year-olds regularly resolved their petty quibbles by one of them declaring: “I'm gonna call the police!” And the other one relenting in fear. A place where everyone monitored everyone else for compliance.

All faithfully recreated - the familiar Wartburg of my childhood that people drive around in is – what? – one of the three models of cars used in the movie? You park it in front of your high-rise, take the tiny shaky tin elevator up to your floor (claustrophobia was I guess a luxury that only the decadent West could afford), open your typical 1980 basic front door model, let yourself in. There’s a certain nostalgia that gets evoked by this imagery, and a group emotion when watching it with other people from your “series”. But of course it's not so much that anyone misses the communist rule and the material lack – though there is that aspect too, many people felt taken care of, like children who didn’t have to worry and didn’t have to think – but I expect that it has more to do with an atmosphere that served as a background to a period of coming of age. And we get nostalgic for that youth, rather than for the political circumstances that happened to surround it.

I grew up with the saying that the system was good, but the people were bad. That communism was a beautiful concept, but people existing in it were wrong for not living up to the ideal. As far as I know, no one I knew asked themselves about the utility of a model that real people can never uphold. And in the case of the Stasi agent Gerd Wiesler, it is not that he becomes corrupted by wielding too much power – it is that he discovers another human trait: empathy for an individual prevails over loyalty to an abstract ideal. People can certainly be trained to behave like machines – but continuous indoctrination is needed. Wiesler is spending too much time alone in the company of Georg Dreyman and Christa Maria Sieland, so he begins to drift away from being purely committed to the cause and obedient to his superiors, and identifying with the artists as human beings. Knowing that his superiors are abusing the cause for personal gain helps push him along.

It must have been a lonely existence, to be a member of the universally hated and feared Stasi. Ulrich Mühe seems perfectly cast: when we first see him, we can immediately believe that he is a severe, ruthless man with no tolerance for sentimentality. He is highly controlled and intimidating. But he also feels profoundly isolated – and no one may notice. We glimpse his intimated softness, before it runs off the edge of the screen, or for a moment before he is back on his guard. He witnesses in touching detail the drama of a close relationship unfolding on the floor below him – and calls up a prostitute for himself, the closest substitute available – begs her to stay for the night. But she is on schedule, just doing her duty. And he knows there is something else completely that he is needing.

How do people dare be more true to themselves with strangers whose names they don’t know and who they won’t see again? I’m thinking of his talk with the actress in the bar at night. He is motivated by a human impulse and protected by anonymity, so he may speak the truth. There is more intimacy in that talk than would ever be conceivable between them in their daytime roles. She, too, decides to suspend the rules of the game for a minute. Through allowing him to see her, through not denying him, she is moved to see herself. Who this man is, she would rather not think about. For a moment, they are just people.

When they meet again face to face in the interrogation room, Wiesler is playing a double role. He must appear tough and professional to his supervisor, and at the same time, when she clearly recognizes him, he must let her know that he is on her side. He reminds her, “Think of your audience”, what they said in the bar that night. A phrase that seems innocuous to his superiors. He demands that she reveal where the typewriter is hidden. She sees the way he looks at her, sees him signal to her with his expression – and although she can’t understand what he could possibly have in mind, she decides once again to trust this stranger – to make that irrational leap of faith. Without any resistance, she tells him where to look.

He was sincere, and did take care of the situation – but she could not know it. In a moment, it seems to her that she had done everything wrong, betrayed her loved one twice, always with the best of intentions. And for the second time, by allowing herself to foolishly trust someone – the someone who, unknown to her, was the third person in their relationship. And she trusted him against all the rules that she had learned to survive in this society. Now it was going to be their demise. Life abruptly loses meaning.

What motivates Wiesler to try to let her know what he did with the typewriter? Instead of starting a first-aid procedure and calling for help? It may be his only chance to tell her, he needs her to know that he did not deceive her. She must know that he was real, and that her trust was real: he would prove that life was not that black.

I’ve wondered why, when Dreyman discovers Wiesler in the new Germany, he gets out of the taxi but then stops, and just looks at him from a distance and sits back into the taxi. I would have wanted them to meet and exchange stories. But perhaps in that action, Dreyman realizes that he needs to follow an unspoken code of appropriateness. Some connections are not meant to be out in the open and discussed much. The two live in essentially different, incompatible roles – and can only meet behind the scenes, where the rules of society don’t apply. So their tacit, mutually understood agreement to communicate indirectly binds them anyway. It takes years, but Wiesler receives Dreyman’s message: nothing more is needed.