I missed this film when it was first released earlier this year, so was pleased to catch it now upon a short rerelease on the back of recent awards. It will certainly be one of my films of the year.
Set in East Berlin in the mid 1980s, it concerns a notable playwright (Georg) and his actress girlfriend (Christa-Maria) who come under Stasi surveillance because a Party Committee member wants the actress. Georg is favoured, is a friend of Honecker's wife, and has always produced works of impeccable GDR ideology, so has until now been above suspicion. Careful in public and private, he maintains friendships with often impulsive and tactless artists, whose work is restricted while his is, so far, untouched. But when one of them commits suicide, he feels impelled to act.
Most of the film is a silent relationship between the Stasi surveillance operative, Wiesler, and his unwitting targets. Wiesler is an expert interrogator, highly professional, cold, detached, but in his surveillance he comes to connect to both Georg and, particularly, Christa-Maria. The writing and acting of this relationship is exceptional, very understated, and the emotional development of all the characters is utterly convincing. The tone, of ever-present threat and suspense, is maintained throughout, and there are some exceptional scenes, of tension and depth.
I wasn't sure that the coda would work, but it clearly does - it pushed me over the edge a bit at the end. It's hard to know what effect this film would have had in former East Germany, but some resonance is added by the fact that the actor who plays the Stasi spy took part in anti-GDR protests in Berlin in 1989, which presumably would be known by a German audience.
This won the Best Foreign Language Oscar, which is good, but has been optioned for a Hollywood remake, which is pointless.
Note: the lead actress (Martina Gedeck) is due to play Ulrike Meinhof in a film of the Baader-Meinhof gang.
IMDb
Set in East Berlin in the mid 1980s, it concerns a notable playwright (Georg) and his actress girlfriend (Christa-Maria) who come under Stasi surveillance because a Party Committee member wants the actress. Georg is favoured, is a friend of Honecker's wife, and has always produced works of impeccable GDR ideology, so has until now been above suspicion. Careful in public and private, he maintains friendships with often impulsive and tactless artists, whose work is restricted while his is, so far, untouched. But when one of them commits suicide, he feels impelled to act.
Most of the film is a silent relationship between the Stasi surveillance operative, Wiesler, and his unwitting targets. Wiesler is an expert interrogator, highly professional, cold, detached, but in his surveillance he comes to connect to both Georg and, particularly, Christa-Maria. The writing and acting of this relationship is exceptional, very understated, and the emotional development of all the characters is utterly convincing. The tone, of ever-present threat and suspense, is maintained throughout, and there are some exceptional scenes, of tension and depth.
I wasn't sure that the coda would work, but it clearly does - it pushed me over the edge a bit at the end. It's hard to know what effect this film would have had in former East Germany, but some resonance is added by the fact that the actor who plays the Stasi spy took part in anti-GDR protests in Berlin in 1989, which presumably would be known by a German audience.
This won the Best Foreign Language Oscar, which is good, but has been optioned for a Hollywood remake, which is pointless.
Note: the lead actress (Martina Gedeck) is due to play Ulrike Meinhof in a film of the Baader-Meinhof gang.
IMDb
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