The Lives of Others is the German gem from director Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck. It stars Ulrich Mühe (Funny Games) as a loyal Stasi agent, Gerd Wiesler, for the German Democratic Republic or GDR in East-Berlin in the 1980s. The main aim of the GDR’s secret police is to spy on and infiltrate suspects who seem to threaten the ideology of the communist East. Gerd is assigned the task to spy on playwright Georg Dreyman, a public supporter of the Eastern ideals, who is suspected of having Western sentiments in private. The microphones that are planted into the walls of Georg’s apartment, give Gerd insight into the special life Georg shares with his actress-girlfriend Christa-Maria Sieland. Before long Georg struggles to remain objective and becomes entwined in their love affair, especially when he learns that the Minister of Germany, Bruno Hempf, has his own secret agenda invested in the surveillance of Georg.

The Lives of Others is a very understated film which deals with very universal topics like the importance of art, love, betrayal, the abuse of power, kindness towards one’s fellow brother or sister. The film is dark and grainy and it symbolises the oppression and suppression of those days. Even though the film is quite long, one gets so enmeshed in the story that the film flows freely and without irritation. Mühe is immaculate in his performance of the emotionally numb Gerd.

Art and artists have played significant roles in bringing about political change or giving a voice to the masses touched by war, or injustice, or racial prejudice, or oppression, etc. This film is also an artwork used by Von Donnersmarck to inform its audience of the injustices that took place in East-Berlin before the wall fell and how this piece of history affected private lives. It brings history to life, not as a faint memory, but as vivid reality.

An interesting and ironic development is: when Gerd starts out on his spying mission, Georg really has no disloyalty towards the communist regime, but when Minister Bruno abuses his power over Christa-Maria and when Georg’s director-friend Jerska is distraught after being blacklisted for several years, he begins to have his reservations. SPOILER WARNING! DO NOT READ THIS IF YOU HAVE NOT YET SEEN THE FILM: An intriguing paradox within the film is that the surveillance of Georg, which is an absolute violation of his privacy, actually leads to Gerd’s turnabout and to Georg’s ultimate freedom from the Stasi. The end of the film is absolutely beautiful and heart wrenching: when the bookseller asks Gerd whether he should wrap Georg’s new novel as a present, he replies that it isn’t necessary because it is for him. But his reply is ambiguous: not only does he buy the novel for himself, but also is the novel actually dedicated to Gerd and a present for him from Georg. It is Georg’s way of thanking him, for if Gerd hadn’t hidden the typewriter, Georg might have been interrogated, isolated and altered by the Stasi, and unable to ever write again.

The film, to me, is also a lamentation of lost love. Gerd’s loyalty to the Stasi might have permitted him from finding a love of his own. I think that is why he is so intrigued by this couple and becomes so entangled in their lives. And also why he seeks company in the arms of prostitutes. Christa-Maria’s betrayal of Georg is also very sad to me: first she sells herself to Minister Bruno to ensure that she can keep on working on the German stage, then she actually breaks down under interrogation and gives away Georg’s secret hiding place. It is not really for me to judge – abnormal circumstances force people to make irrational choices. She must never have been forced to make such a decision in the first place. But the fact remains that she did make her choice and that her artistry was more important to her than her love for Georg. How sad. SPOILERS END HERE.

Genre: Drama
Running time: 137 min
Country: Germany
Language: German
Director: Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck
Writing credits: Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck
Producers: Max Wiedemann
Quirin Berg
Cinematographer: Hagen Bogdanski
Editor: Patricia Rommel
Music:Gabriel Yared
Stephane Moucha
Main Cast:
Hauptmann Gerd Wiesler – Ulrich Mühe
Georg Dreyman – Sebastian Koch
Oberstleutnant Anton Grubitz – Ulrich Tukur
Christa-Maria Sieland – Martina Gedeck
Paul Hauser – Hans-Uwe Bauer
Minister Bruno Hempf – Thomas Thieme

Since September, Cuarón made the news not only by signing a controversial petition by the Société des Auteurs et Compositeurs Dramatiques’ (SACD) protesting the extradition of Roman Polanski from Switzerland for an outstanding warrant dating back to his 1977 rape conviction but also for his participation in  Autism Speaks‘ “I am Autism” campaign (details below the cut).

More recently, HR reported that the director was in early stage talks to direct the remake of Jérôme Salle’s The Tourist (original title: Anthony Zimmer) , replacing Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck (The Lives of Others), originally attached to the project.  Variety reports that the production is to finally begin in February after a number of cast and crew changes since 2005.  However, as recently as last week, von Donnersmarck asserted that he was still attached to the project.  “In the trades, everything they say…I think you can discount a lot of it.  It’s just a way of talking about the business, and sometimes things get out about heated points of discussion. We’ll see how it plays out with that one.”

In October, the finalists for the AXN Film Festival were announced.  Jury members – including Gael García Bernal, Diego Luna, and Carlos Cuarón, among others – selected ten short films from across South America which will air on AXN from 15th November to to 6th December in Brazil, Mexico, Columbia, Argentina, and Venezuela.  The winner will be announced Sunday, 13th December.  Read more.  The Sunday Times carried an interview with Carlos and Alfonso Cuarón by Beverley D’Silva ahead of of the DVD release of Rudo y Cursi in the UK mid-November.  The brothers discussed their relationship growing up and making films, “Writing [Y tu mamá también], we were laughing like crazy and getting very excited. We learnt that the only way to make things happen is to take control of your material from the get-go. And it all happened from there.”

Apologies for the great delay!

***

22^nd September, international autism research and advocacy organisation Autism Speaks launched its second annual world conference and the “Decade for Autism”p campaign urging governments to better fund autism research and social services for families affected by autism.  Screened at the conference was a short-film commissioned especially for the initiative called “I am Autism,” by Alfonso Cuarón and songwriter Billy Mann, who are both parents of children diagnosed with autism.  The organisation invited individuals with autism and their family to submit footage which was put together with a reading of a poem by Mann, “to show the global face of autism.”

The video, available on YouTube, immediately drew criticism from autistic self-advocates across the web.  Liz Ditz provides a long list of blog posts and articles responding to the video in the days immediately after its release while The New Republic provides coverage of Autism Speaks’ public relations disaster as well as the Autistic Self Advocacy Network’s official response (press release and blog excerpts) to “I am Autism.”

“This is the latest in a series of unethical fundraising strategies adopted by Autism Speaks,” said Ari Ne’eman, an adult on the autism spectrum and President of the Autistic Self Advocacy Network (ASAN). “This type of fear mongering hurts Autistic people, by raising fear and not contributing in the slightest to accurate understanding of the needs of Autistic adults and children.”

In addition to the charge of fear mongering and misrepresentation of autism and autistic people, one of the major criticisms of the Autism Speaks campaign targets the exploitative nature of the video campaign, which featured primarily minors unable to personally consent to the use of their image.  Furthermore, rather than providing a platform for autistic persons to discuss their experiences as the name of the campaign might suggest (it is perhaps here that I find this (re)presentation so problematic, personally), the narration instead personifies and demonises autism, focusing on the burden it creates for parents of children with autism.  Thomas C. Weiss of Disabled World takes a closer look at the campaign activities of Autism Speaks, while board members from the Global and Regional Asperger Syndrome Partnership (GRASP) offer their criticisms (requires Facebook sign-in) of the organisation’s past campaigns.

In the week after the video’s release, Autism Speaks responded to the criticism, explaining: “It is an intensely personal expression by these two fathers and their hope is that the piece inspires other voices and artists in the autism community.  No one perspective can ever be the definitive voice of autism.”  The group additionally offered to remove the video “I am Autism,” but it is still available online.  There has been no response from either Mann or Cuarón.

Most recently, Claudia Wallis of Time covered some of the controversy generated by the video, including a statement from Autism Speaks’ vice-president Peter Bell, who acknowledged, “We realized it did hurt a certain segment of the population, which is why we removed the video link from our website,” also admitting the lack of autistic representation on its advisory boards.  Michael Novinson of Bryn Mawr and Harverford Colleges’ Bi-College News also offered an opinion on the controversy, “Giving autistic people a more prominent platform in their own movement may not result in medical breakthroughs, but it should help bridge cultural divides. At the very least, they can caution well-intentioned yet naïve filmmakers against portraying autism subjects as lifeless zombies powerless in their own struggle.”

28^th AMENDMENT by Alex Kurtzman & Roberto Orci

120 pages

3 June 08

Florian Henckel Von Donnersmarck attached to direct.

Set up at Warner Bros.

Orci & Kurtzman also producing.

No current actor attachments.

Say what you will about the grand doyens of crazyscript, these guys have a lock on big-and-wild movies.  They’re a brand name now, producing films like Eagle Eye and The Proposal, scripts which weren’t written by them but certainly feel like they could’ve been.  Whatever you think of Star Trek (like) and Transformers (uh…) and Mission Impossible III (no), box office doesn’t lie.

I'm certain they had nothing to do with the minstrel show characters in Transformers 2.

What’s interesting about 28^th Amendment is that this isn’t based on a previous property.  That’s a first for them (in terms of produced scripts).  Even The Island wasn’t originally written by them; it was a rewrite.  It sold to Warner Bros. some time ago.  Denzel and Tom Cruise were attached at one point (although what isn’t Tom Cruise attached to these days?) and then in March, WB announced they’d attached Florian Henckel Von Donnersmarck, the German Oscar-winning director of The Lives of Others.  Whether or not this actually comes to pass remains to be seen.  As my habitual readers might recall, Donnersmarck is also attached to The Tourist, which seems to have a clearer path to production.  I’ll bet that one gets made first.

The script is described as The Firm in the White House, but that’s like saying Where the Wild Things Are is Die Hard with muppets (when really we all know it’s a Woody Allen movie).  BEN has just been elected President but he finds out that the President is little more than a figurehead when a black bag op in Macau goes wrong and the US is brought to the brink of war with the Chinese.  Turns out a secret organization runs the country.  They’re led by HAWTHORNE, a Senator, and they want to start a war with China.  Special Forces soldier GRAY escapes Macau after the bungled job and he’s prodded into killing Ben by Hawthorne’s group, but Gray realizes that Ben is one of the good guys and together they team up to stop the war, keep Hawthorne’s men from killing Ben’s family, and restore the Presidency.

Here’s a script link for you.  I say it every time; let me know if you’re the copyright holder and you’d like me to take it down.

Roberto & Alex:

Hey guys.  Great seeing you at the premiere last night; those Bob Zemeckis movies are wild, huh?  My wife wants to replace me with a fully-motion-captured animated character now.  I might have to get myself one of those ping pong ball leotards.

So the good news is that I’ve dug up the June 08 draft of 28^th and it’s aged well.  The bad news is that it’s still a long way away from getting into fighting shape.  I still like the core idea, but there isn’t much underpinning the story.  It’s something of a mess and it’ll take a lot of digging to extract it.

The script starts too early.  You spend an inordinate amount of time on Ben, the inauguration, setting up that he’s a maverick, showing us around the White House, introducing the concept of the bunker, the chip, and it takes you 14 pages to do it.  Everything up until the hit in Macau feels clumsy, too long, and overly indulgent.  Every time you cut to a talking head on television, you’re just giving us exposition.  Cut every last one of them – they aren’t necessary.  Show us how he’s a maverick, don’t just tell us.  Gray’s scene with Anna is a flatliner and the very next scene with Ben and Hawthorne going toe-to-toe is equally wan.  C’mon, you can do better.

Do we need an entire sequence devoted to the inauguration?

I’ve got an idea for the first act.  I think the script needs to open on an operation or a moment of crisis that sets up a couple of ideas: first, we need to establish that this young, new President is an independent thinker who works against the system (although that describes every President ever portrayed on screen); second , we need to show the details of the world Ben exists in and how crisis can change it (here’s where we set up the bunker, the chip, the ever-present Secret Service, and Ben’s family); third, and most importantly, Ben’s behavior during this crisis has to push Hawthorne to reveal the existence of the 28^th.  Everything at the open of the script is static and expository; throw it out.  Let’s see these elements in action.

The script cannot work unless Hawthorne’s revelation of the 28^th to Ben makes sense, and right now it doesn’t make any sense at all.  Hawthorne has no reason for telling him, regardless of how he tries to spin it right now.  Telling Ben about the group only puts it in jeopardy.  You’ve got that moment right before the reveal where the cabal of men talks about how it’s necessary, but you don’t show us that it’s necessary.  We have to understand on a gut level that if they don’t tell Ben, it’ll end badly for everyone.  Back them into a corner and force it out of Hawthorne somehow.  Maybe they’re telling Ben because they want to bring him in; maybe he’s been nominated to join them.  Maybe they realize that for the first time they’re dealing with a President they have to bargain with.  What if there’s a period in the script when Ben assumes that every President is part of the 28^th?  What if he thinks they’re benevolent at first, and then only later does he realize how horrible they are?  Maybe that’s the moment when he finds out they were responsible for JFK.  That moment should still come at the end of the first act.

Back, and to the left. Back, and to the left.

And just as an addendum – you have to show that the 28^th is responsible for way more than just the JFK assassination.  I want to understand how their hands are dirty with every single foreign policy decision of the last 60 years.  I want their manipulation to be fascinating, all-encompassing, and fucking scary, because that’s the only way the stakes get raised here.

Gray is a great character, but his arc happens way too quickly.  I do not believe in any way, shape, or form that he’d so immediately turn into wanting to kill the President.  I like the concept of the scene where he’s about to kill the President but realizes that Ben is in the same predicament as he is, and I like the placement of it, smack in the middle of the script, but no way, no how do you sufficiently motivate him turning into an assassin.  Besides, you establish with the JFK footage that if the 28^th wants to kill a President, they need a patsy but they have redundancies in place.  Gray wouldn’t be the only one there and the other sniper wouldn’t hesitate.  This presents a sticky problem – you’ve gotta come up with some way to keep the core of the scene but making sense of it this time.  I don’t have an answer there; we’ll have to brainstorm some ways of working that out.

The very next scene, with Hawthorne confronting Ben in the interrogation room, points out a particular problem with the script.  It’s filled with these monologues and clumsy, blustery exchanges between characters that don’t amount to much of anything.  Hawthorne doesn’t need to threaten and pound his fist like this – it’s false, contrived, and uninteresting.  All he apparently needs to do is hold up a picture of Ben’s family in order to get what he wants.  And yet I’m not convinced that Ben would choose family over country here.  I think he might consider sacrificing his own family in order to keep the world from falling into World War III.  Hawthorne, then, needs another tack, another way to convince Ben to do his bidding.  Considering just how powerful you’ve set up the 28^th to be, I’d think they’d have no problem manipulating the situation so that Ben makes exactly the decision they want him to.

What if Hawthorne makes it look like the Chinese are planning on assassinating his family?  That brings the threat against Samantha and Marisa into the China storyline.

This presents an interesting option.  Could we delay the revelation of the 28^th?  Could the first half of the script be all about Hawthorne manipulating Ben, Ben getting suspicious that something isn’t right but almost coming to the brink of war with the Chinese, and then finding out the truth?  It might take care of a lot of the script’s clumsiness and if Ben discovers the 28^th rather than is told about it by Hawthorne, we avoid the entire issue of Hawthorne’s motivation for telling Ben when no one has ever told any other President ever.

Small note: I’d like to see a quip about how originally, they were the 23^rd Amendment, but they keep getting pushed back when a new amendment is enacted.  Also, a history note: the 22^nd Amendment which created term limits was created out of recommendations from the Hoover Commission during Truman’s presidency.  No one ever talked about term limits during FDR’s presidency.  The Hoover Commission could be the genesis of the 28^th, actually – maybe they were the first members of the society now run by Hawthorne.

There are a few other, larger logical missteps.  Ben and Gray’s team get to the Chinese premier’s plane way too easily – you have to explain why the Secret Service isn’t able to cordon off the plane, set up a perimeter.  Something like the plane doesn’t land where it’s supposed to, just to establish how the Secret Service is caught off guard.  And through that whole assault on the air base, you show Samantha in the bunker as the bad guys are getting closer, and then, suddenly, Ben and his forces take out the bad guys and magically show up.  Exactly how far away is the air base from the White House?  How easy is it for Ben to extricate himself from the Chinese premier’s plane, get back to the chopper (keep in mind the Secret Service is still going to be pursuing him this entire time), get to the White House, and then fight his way in?  It’d take Jack Bauer at least three episodes.  I’m thinking Ben is no different.  The way it’s written here?  He wraps things up with the Premier and then five minutes later, he rescues Samantha.

With all due respect, Madame President -- ask around.

And about Samantha in the bunker: the script expends a remarkable amount of energy setting up the idea that neither Samantha nor Ben know if the other is alive, and each frets interminably about the other’s safety.  Except we know both are alive, so the question is completely moot.  You know better than to set up a situation where the audience is waiting for the characters to catch up.  The Samantha bunker sequence can be pared down extensively; end it on a cliffhanger where we don’t know if they made it and then have us find out when Ben finds out.

I love how much of a two-hander the script is, and I love how it’ll really only work with stars.  It’s a big sweeping scope of a film; the only trick now is making it great. Consider the gauntlet thrown.

John

• HARLEY PEYTON is set to write JULIET (Universal). Hearing studio can’t officially hire until January. JAMES MANGOLD is producing.
• Studio has offers out to SIGOURNEY WEAVER, JEFFREY WRIGHT, and CHRIS COOPER for roles in CEDAR RAPIDS. This project is set up at Fox Searchlight and was written by PHIL JOHNSTON. ALEXANDER PAYNE is producing. MIGUEL ARTETA is directing.
• RICHARD LINKLATER is off LIARS A-E that is set up at Miramax with Scott Rudin producing. PETE SOLLET is interested in directing.
• Studio is activating the UNTITLED LES GROSSMAN PROJECT (Paramount), an”original story” centered on TOM CRUISES’s character in TROPIC THUNDER. Tom has expressed interest in wanting to reprise the role and they are starting to talk to writers.
• FLORIAN HENCKEL VON DONNERSMARCK and JUAN CARLOS FRESNADILLO have offers to direct ANABASIS (Sony). JIMMY MILLER, JONATHAN & ROBBIE STAMP are producing. ROBERT SCHENKKAN adapted based on Xenophon’s eyewitness account of the expedition of the Ten Thousand Greek mercenaries who fought under Cyrus.
• J. MICHAEL STRACZYNSKI is writting SHATTERED UNION  for Jerry Bruckheimer and Disney.
• Mike Newell is in talks to direct remake ARTHUR (Warner Brothers).CHRIS BENDER, LARRY BREZNER, and KEVIN MCCORMICK are attached to produce. PETER BAYNHAM wrote the most recent draft based on the 1981 ARTHUR movie directed by STEVEN GORDON.
• Hearing: REESE WITHERSPOON is making a deal for the remake of THE ORPHANAGE (New Line). Contra is producing and they are looking for a new director. LARRY FESSENDEN was previously attached to direct. He wrote the script with GUILLERMO DEL TORO.
• GAVIN HOOD will direct THE CRUELEST MILES (Walden). MARK JOHNSON is producing.  O’KEEFE & STAPLES wrote the last draft.
• MIKE NEWELL will direct LENINGRAD (Warner Brothers), written by GIUSEPPE TORNATORE. GK Films is producing.
• GARY ROSS will rewrite and direct MATT HELM (Paramount).
• KATHERINE FUGATE will adapt WHAT ALICE FORGOT (Fox 2000).
• KURTZMAN & ORCI will direct THE 28TH AMMENDMENT (Warner Brothers).
• STEVEN KNIGHT is set to write THE THIRD MAN remake for TOBEY MAGUIRE and LEO DICAPRIO.  Canal Plus holds the rights.  It could go to Sony or Warner Brothers.
• MARC WEBB fell off THE SPECTACULAR NOW (Fox Searchlight). 21 Laps is producing. A draft is in and are going to move forward without Marc.

THE TOURIST by Julian Fellowes, rev. William Wheeler, Jeffrey Nachmanoff

102 pages

9 June 08

Director: Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck (rumored)

Starring: Angelina Jolie & Sam Worthington

Producers: Gary Barber, Roger Birnbaum, & Jonathan Glickman

Production company: Spyglass

Status: apparently on track to film in February

There’s been a lot of talk lately about this project, a remake of the French film “Alexander Zimmer.”  Tom Cruise was originally slated to star, but then he decided to do “Knight and Day” instead. Now Sam Worthington will play the part of Frank, and he’s starring opposite Angelina Jolie. Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck directed “The Lives of Others” more than three years ago and it’s taken him until now to settle on what will apparently be his follow-up to that brilliant Oscar-winning film.

I don’t have a lot of patience for this script.  Nachmanoff is good enough to know better than to pull off some of the cheats he and the other writers try here.  It’s disappointing, really, when seasoned writers ignore a script’s internal logic.  The good news is that apparently Christopher McQuarrie has done or is doing a rewrite; the bad news is that I haven’t read a decent Chris McQuarrie script in years.  He’s batting 0-5 with me since 2002.

He needs to spend more time in the batting cages. What? He's got an Oscar. Does he need my love, too?

Script link here, and as I say over and over, if you’re the copyright holder and you’d like the link removed, give the high sign and I’ll take it down.

If you haven’t read the script yet and want to be surprised, read no further.  Major spoilers abound from here on out!  Though really, if you can’t guess what the spoilers are, then I’m not sure you’ve paid much attention to spy movies.

A primer on the script: CARA is the girlfriend of Alexander, an international criminal who has altered his appearance and now no one knows what he looks like.  She seduces FRANK, a schlubby American tourist, so that the Interpol agents and Russian mobsters trying to find Alexander think that he’s turned into Frank.  Turns out Cara’s an Interpol agent herself and Frank is forced into some sticky situations as he deals with the very mean Russian who thinks he’s Alexander.  The big reveal?  Frank actually turns out to be Alexander.

Looking for the script link?  It’s not in the usual place.  It’s up there right under the picture of Mr. McQuarrie so if someone wanted to read the script first without reading my spoilers, they could do that.  See how considerate I am?

Hey Jeffrey,

Simone is out of the office this week, on vacation back home in Iowa or Ohio or wherever, so if you can believe this, I’m actually typing this email myself!  Haven’t done this since I was a CE at Revolution.

I’ve had a long series of talks with Florian about the script, and we’ve come up with some new directions.  I should say I haven’t seen the French original, but I think that’s to our benefit – I’m looking at this as nothing more than a story independent of its source; I’m not married to any idea or concept.

Right now, the script doesn’t feel like what it should be; it’s stuck in an identity crisis.  It’s not quite an action script, or an adventure.  It’s not a thriller.  It’s actually not a spy story.  The script is written in the tone of a spy thriller, but it doesn’t have the content of a spy thriller.  The story, such as it is, is a manhunt.

I'm a machine? Noooo! I'm human! I'm not a machine!

Here’s where it gets tricky, because while the story is a manhunt, the opening conceit makes us think that this’ll be about an ordinary man in extraordinary circumstances.  But because of the reveal that Frank is actually the fugitive everyone is looking for, that means that we haven’t been watching an ordinary man as we were led to believe.  We’ve been watching an extraordinary man, and that forces us to think of the story in some very different ways.

Thing is, I think the script this starts out being is a pretty great one.  I like that Cara makes everyone think that this poor schlub is really an international fugitive.  I like that he’s a naif, clumsy, and so very ordinary.  I like that Cara starts to fall for him, and I like that her guilt eats at her.  That conflict, as she’s dooming this guy while falling into bed with him, has the potential to be really great.

As it stands, the conceit that Frank is actually Alexander and that Cara is actually with Interpol gives us a whole host of inconsistencies.  Frank acts like Frank when he’s around other people, but he also acts like Frank when he’s by himself.  That can’t happen.  The scene in the safe house when Frank does push-ups, the scene in the police station when Frank hesitantly searches on the computer, the scene where Frank dreams about seducing Cara, the scene where Frank investigates the watch and spots Alexander engraved on the back – all these pieces don’t make sense in the context of Frank actually being Alexander.  And just how is it that Cara ends up picking Frank out of everyone on the platform?  Yeah, Frank runs into her, but that’s no guarantee that she’ll select him. The script rests on the notion that Cara will pick Frank, but Frank doesn’t do much to ensure that happens.

Cara is equally conflicting – I’ll believe moments like Cara warning Alexander when Ackerman and the team of Interpol agents assaults his villa, but I don’t think the team would put their entire operation in jeopardy by involving a bystander like they do Frank.  I understand that they were trying to lure in Demidov, but if Demidov was really their target, then at his first appearance, they’d have arrested him or killed him and be done with it.  They would’ve found another agent to masquerade as Alexander so that the entire operation was under their control.  Often, Ackerman says something about Cara as if she isn’t his agent – but everyone else in the scene also knows that Cara is undercover.  C’mon.  That’s just manipulative and unfair.

She's an Interpol agent. An Interpol agent with a ridiculous hair style.

Now we get to the crux of the issue; it’s not enough that Alexander is a money launderer who stole from a powerful Russian and didn’t pay his taxes.  If this story is going to work, I think Alexander has to be a spy.  He could’ve gone rogue.  He could be a double-agent working both sides.  He might be a corporate spy.  He might be retired.  Whatever we settle on (and the rogue spy idea probably has the most promise), it needs to carry with it stakes that are weightier than a tax bill.

Alexander might need a MacGuffin.  I like the concept in the script that Alexander is trying to wipe the slate clean and get the heat off himself somehow; if he’s a rogue agent, then he could be trying to pull off some kind of operation or give someone a piece of information or a device or something that settles a debt or vindicates himself or somehow makes his escape complete.  Whatever it is, make it a movie movie idea.  It has to be brilliant.

The other piece of this is that I think the script will succeed more if Frank doesn’t turn out to be Alexander.  That’s a big note, but it’ll mean that the script delivers on what it’s promising.  We’re here to see a spy thriller about an ordinary guy mistaken for a hunted spy.  Give us that.  Besides, the twist isn’t so shocking that it’s worth the rigmarole it requires of the script.

So we’re back to the concept: a guy is mistaken for an international spy who is wanted by six law enforcement agencies and one pissed-off Russian mobster, and he has to outsmart them all while he falls for the spy’s girl.  Except now, Frank isn’t really mistaken by anyone but the Russians and there aren’t that many instances of Frank being in genuine danger.

Everyone has to actually believe that Frank is Alexander.  At one point, I want even Cara to think that he’s Alexander.  In the end, the point is that it doesn’t even matter who Alexander is – Frank becomes Alexander because that’s who he must be in order to survive and get himself out of this situation.

Lastly, the script needs more sizzle, more pop, and way way more action.  I count 3 action sequences of any note: the hotel escape, the hospital escape, and the finale with Demidov.  None of the sequences are interesting, unique, or imaginative.  None feel dangerous.  None get my blood pumping.  Frank doesn’t need to be an action hero, but we have to feel like he could get caught or killed at any time, and we have to think that every time he gets away is a miracle.  I want Frank to be the high school math teacher who’s just been dumped by his fiance.  Think Clive Owen’s character in “Children of Men.”  Those action sequences were far more visceral and realistic than we’re going for here, but Clive Owen’s reaction to and relationship to the violence is what we should aim for.

Clive Owen's character is confused, off-balance, and mostly just trying to keep his shit together through the entire film.

Really, I think this needs to be all about delivering on what we’re promising, and as it stands now, I believe that keeping Frank the ordinary man he starts out as will achieve that.  It also means more tension and conflict for Cara’s character, as she’s torn between the flawed criminal she thought she loved and the innocent kind man she’s starting to fall for.  She’ll have to actually choose in this new version, instead of be let off the hook like she is now.

The movie I’m talking about here is a genuine action spy thriller, and it should still contain all the relationship work that makes this current draft interesting.  It’ll still be twisty, but it can’t be cheap or manipulative.  It’s massive work, it’s lots to digest, and it’ll require going back to the drawing board.  Breakfast at Penelope’s, 8 AM?  I’d have Simone book it, but Idaho or Ohio, you know the drill.

El cineasta alemán Florian Henckel Von Donnersmarck, realizador de esa obra maestra titulada La Vida de los Otros, tiene todas las papeletas para convertirse en el director de The Tourist. El remake ha sufrido cambios radicales en su equipo desde su anuncio, siendo sustituídos su director y sus dos estrellas principales. Ahora Von Donnersmarck contará con Sam Worthington y Angelina Jolie, cuya incorporación al filme parece confirmarse después de los rumores surgidos al respecto en los últimos días. Von Donnersmarck empezará a rodar este enrevesado thriller en el mes de Febrero, con la mente puesta en un estreno durante el año 2.011. Esta será la primera película en Hollywood del aclamado director, aunque no su primer proyecto. Meses atrás se daba por hecha su participación en el thriller político The 28th Amendment, del que no se ha vuelto a tener noticias. Curiosamente su protagonista iba a ser Tom Cruise, que también abandonó esta The Tourist.

Ein außerordentliche Film-Das leben der anderen

Thriller, drama, dar si film politic mai bun decat cele mai multe mizerii scoase de americani…

Die Sonate vom Guten Menschen-Danke Du

Un film de nota zwantzig ce merita vazut…Un film recomandat pentru tinerii care nu stiu si nici nu vor sa stie nimic despre viata de atunci.

The film is an ode to the power of art and in this interview with director Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck he explains what he was trying to achieve with The Lives of Others. Here is an extract:

“What we are and what we display to the world is what we choose to reveal. It is the artist, he states, who would go into those dark parts of the soul where normally you never shine any light, find that part and use it and display it in their art. And I think that holds true for writers. While writing something, I’m kind of acting out these parts in my head, and if I don’t take that from inside then it won’t be true. It just will not be true.”

All this begs the question, what is it about art that makes it so dangerous to those in power? “I think it is related to exactly that thing we were just talking about,” answers von Donnersmarck. “An authoritarian society, a totalitarian regime, will try and tell you which of those facets of your Jungian character you are going to display. They have a certain vision of what mankind should be, and this is what they try and force you to do.”

“Now comes the artist, putting you on a sort of virtual reality ride of the soul for the soul and then has you see that this [forced] reality is not what you are really about. There is no way you can force a [person] into their old way of being after they have recognized that they are not what society wants them to be. And that is very scary to a totalitarian regime, so they try to weed out the [artists] who take people on that virtual reality ride of the soul.”

“And this is what the Stasi always did. They tried to get rid of actors and writers and directors who did not stick to the government’s ideas of how people were going to be. They hated real individualism, because individualism is just far too complicated and dangerous for a [government] to deal with. Even with 300,000 police officers they couldn’t keep individualism in check. They like people, or certain groups of people, to behave in more or less the same way because then they don’t have to deal or cope with them, they can predict their behavior.”

“They hate unpredictability. They hate anything which is in any way different. Since real art encourages you to be different, encourages you to recognize that you are different and special, and that’s in a way the essence of art. I mean, art is the perfect antidote to any sort of collectivism, so it is just the natural enemy [to totalitarianism], which is why I think the art that rose to the top in the GDR for me isn’t art at all. It is something that vaguely resembles art, but it is not at all the deep kind of experience that will help you explore your soul.”

Das Leben der Anderen.

Director: Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck.

Guión: Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck.

Intérpretes: Martina Gedeck, Ulrich Mühe, Sebastian Koch, Ulrich Tukur, Thomas Thieme.

Música: Gabriel Yared y Stéphane Moucha.

Fotografía: Hagen Bogdanski.

Alemania. 2006. 138 mins. aprox.

En la RDA

A Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck, realizador germano de tan rimbombante nombre, le cayeron parabienes por todas partes cuando estrenó esta Das Leben der Anderen, premios que empezaron en su cinematografía nacional y después ganaron la plaza europea, e incluso, al otro lado del charco, se alzó con el Oscar a la Mejor Película Extranjera. Sin pretender decidir si hay o no para tanto bombo –porque los premios suelen ser caprichosos, y prueba de ello es que a menudo se encadenan-, vaya por delante que nos hallamos ante un filme de atractiva premisa e interesante visionado. Atractiva premisa por cuanto su temática (una trama impregnada del contexto político de la ya extinta República Democrática Alemana, y  urdida a partir de las prácticas de la Stasi, policía secreta de aquel país) resulta más bien poco transitada por el cine, e interesante de conocer por sus innegables méritos artísticos.

Valores

Méritos artísticos que se concretan en un guión que, a pesar de cierta demora expositiva en algunos compases, está bien hilvanado, presenta buenas soluciones argumentales, es prolijo en lecturas metafóricas o simbólicas –algunas obvias, otras menos- que encuentran un magnífico encaje en lo formulario, en esa a menudo complicada aritmética de la estructura argumental; la sobria puesta en escena, diestra en el ágil perfil de personajes y escenarios, en la construcción de esa atmósfera agobiante en lo que incumbe a los personajes principales; relacionado con lo anterior, una pulcra banda sonora bien utilizada para puntear el tono de la narración, un alambicado sonoro trabajado y certero en la descripción tanto de las tensiones como de las lánguidas emociones puestas en la picota; y, en fin, también cabe mencionar el repertorio de buenas interpretaciones que jalona la película.

De ideologías

Sin embargo, hay algo que no acaba de funcionar en esta Das Leben der Anderen. Algo que tiene que ver con el discurso que tamiza esos acontecimientos que, paradójicamente, se revelan como bigger than life al espectador. A poco de reflexionar al respecto, uno se da cuenta de que la cuestión ideológica que sustenta la película da por producir extrañas sensaciones en su visionado. El afán pretendidamente realista en el que parecen plantearse los términos en la presentación transita sutilmente hacia otros territorios, de cepa puramente genérica –el drama psicológico, el thriller- que no resultan del todo honestos por cuanto se tensan en la textura ideológica: el filme se cuida muy mucho de recordar al espectador continuamente que lo que se pretende es lanzar una diatriba sobre las prácticas corruptas y castrantes del estado policial de aquel tiempo y lugar, esto es antes de la caída del muro. Los personajes que mueven los hilos de la historia son de una pieza, y en el caso del cambio de postura de Wiesler, el agente encargado de las escuchas en casa del escritor, el filme revela sus cartas demagógicas con demasiada evidencia, por cuanto no escarba en los motivos de ese súbito cambio de postura –un cambio para nada intrascendente, pues marcará a fuego el ninguneo de su futuro profesional, y él lo sabe-. Quizá se deja que el espectador deduzca las razones de ese cambio (el haberse enamorado de Christa, o quizá la mera solidaridad con los sentimientos de la pareja que escrutina), en cuyo caso faltan asideros dramáticos para atar bien los cabos de la narración (pues nada se resuelve en ese sentido); o tal vez no, acaso se pretende que el espectador ya dé por sentado que Wiesler es un héroe, y que hace lo correcto: otra vez más, la ecuación se descuadra, porque esa circunstancia casa bien poco con la descripción de su personalidad fría y calculadora que hemos conocido en la presentación del filme… Con todo ello vengo a decir que, sin prejuzgar la realidad de los hechos traumáticos para una nación (o varias naciones de la Europa del Este) que el filme quiere retratar, están servidos a menudo con excesiva liviandad, una carencia de matices que habilita cualquier opción (ideológica) opuesta que pueda tildar el filme de reduccionista. Así las cosas, tal vez hubiera sido mejor que el filme descentralizara un tanto el conflicto dramático del contexto histórico y social, de ese poso ideológico cuya carencia de máculas resulta poco convincente. Si así fuera, quizá no hubiera ganado tantos premios… Quién sabe, quizá sería una mejor película.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0405094/

http://www.labutaca.net/films/47/lavidadelosotros.htm

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/07/movies/awardsseason/07ridi.html?_r=1

http://www.variety.com/review/VE1117930778.html?categoryID=31&cs=1

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Lives_of_Others

Todas las imágenes pertenecen a sus autores

Go here to read an interview with director Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck. He is interviewed by Cinematical and he chat about his film, his views on filmmaking … and which actor he’d want as his commanding officer in an actual war situation.

Here’s a taste -

The central theme that I got out of The Lives of Others was change and the capacity of people to change, and I wondered if you could talk a bit about that, and how you wove that theme throughout the film.

You’re right that that’s a central theme, because I think it’s one of the big questions in life: can we change, or are we just what our horoscopes tell us that we will be? At Oxford I studied Scholastic Philosophy, which included studying the works of Thomas Aquinas. Thomas Aquinas always formulates things as a statement, and then he’ll have pros and cons about them and come to his own conclusion.

In one of these he debates the question of astrology. And he actually comes to the conclusion that astrology will tell you something about your future and where you are and where you’re going — maybe even tell you exactly. And he says that is why it’s so hard to change, why change feels like swimming upstream, because you’re fighting against all the stars and all the weight of that, against the current of the universe. I think it’s important to realize that when people change it’s always a legion of things that drive the change, not just one thing.

When his film The Lives of Others was released Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck was aware that the topic of Communist dictatorship would give rise to discussion, and what is more – that is exactly what he wanted. No system of spies in the world, the director knows, is as comprehensive as that of the GDR was: more than a quarter of a million people were employed by the “State Security” (Stasi) to sound out their fellow citizens. This is a bitter truth that has now – in the 17th year after German reunification – been examined in a feature film for the first time. Donnersmarck did not make his material into a didactic film, but backed a technique of emotionalising personification. Peter Schneider, German author and member of the German Film Award jury, summed this up: “For a long time, there was a tendency to portray the GDR as a state where no one really suffered and the Stasi was regarded as something of a joke.” He went on to say that The Lives of Others was the first serious attempt at showing how the Stasi terrorized millions of GDR citizens. Even though the Stasi officer and the poet that he keeps under surveillance were not taken directly from official files, Donnersmarck insists that his film plot is very close to reality. “Everything could have happened that way at that time in GDR history.”

The director experienced the Stasi-debate “as something necessary for Germany, but also as something sad. I can imagine that the success of, shall we say, Run Lola Run was a reason for pure celebration for Tom Tykwer. For me, there is also a sense of despair over The Lives of Others and its victory march. Daily, I receive letters from people who tell me how they were mistreated and how they recognise themselves in the film. And the poet Guenter Ullmann sent me one of his volumes of poetry, with a grateful dedication. He was the one who – after endless, brutal Stasi interrogations – had all his teeth pulled, because he was convinced that bugs had been implanted in them (in fact, his closest friend was an IM – an unofficial Stasi employee – something he simply could not fathom). And the next day, the actor Henry Huebchen tells an audience of millions that people in artists’ circles laughed at the Stasi rather than anything else. That is the kind of roller-coaster ride I have experienced over the last 4 months. I will be glad to leave the subject behind me. I have just turned down a big American project because it would have brought me back into contact with the same set of themes.”

From Director’s Portrait

I have added and extract from an interview with Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck that is on the Premiere site. In the interview he links his film to George Orwell’s 1984.

Kenny: One of the things that I found interesting about the character of Weisler, the spy played by Muhe, is that he seems to be almost a Winston Smith in reverse, you know, he begins by loving Big Brother as it were and being a very true believer. And then when he’s exposed both to the hypocrisy of his colleagues and also to the humanity of the people he’s sort of been put under orders to ruin, his humanity starts to emerge.

Von Donnersmarck: Because the movie is set in 1984 and goes on into ’85, I thought I was going to call the film 1985 and–but then when I told people that idea, people didn’t catch on to the thing that this means, you know—1984 plus 1. Like taking it one step further, because in a way that’s what the GDR was. It was the Orwellian state taken to a weird level of reality. I remember in that year, 1984, I lived in Berlin and we were in the East a lot, because my mother is from there, and when we traveled there I always thought, this is it, you know, this is what Orwell has been describing; so I wasn’t necessarily thinking of the character but sure, that kind of atmosphere is definitely there.

Read more here.

I have added a section from an interview with FHvD on sound, set design and colour below.

What was your approach with respect to sound, set design and colour schemes?

To capture the atmosphere of East Berlin, we did not record in digital but in analogue in order to convey a sense of “reduced calm.” Set designer Silke Buhr and I had a very definite idea about the colour scheme. The GDR had its own world of colours and forms. The cars and fabrics were pale and desaturated. We proceeded through reduction. Since there was more green than blue in the GDR, we completely omitted blue. There was also more orange than red, so we eliminated red. We consistently used certain shades of brown, beige, orange, green and grey to try and be as authentic as possible to what life under the GDR looked like. Emptiness is an aesthetically neutral condition. The streets of East Berlin are filmed almost empty, exactly as they were during those years. The local Kneipe, or pub, is almost empty; the canteen for the Stasi employees is Spartan. Wiesler’s apartment, a “plattenbau” (or high-rise apartment the Communists built during the 70s) is devoid of any sense of being a home. Wiesler’s world actually starts to open when he begins spying on the actors who live in a charming Altbau, a typical old Berlin apartment with big rooms, high ceilings and creaky wooden floors. When he is perched above their apartment, using the attic as his listening post, I wanted to convey that his worldview was challenged. We did not want an overload of “GDR props.” For me, the set design has to deliver the perfect background for the emotions of the actors – no more, but also no less. I don’t want the viewer to start thinking about individual props instead of emotionally connecting with the characters.

Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck’s (yep, that is really his name)  feature film debut “Das Leben der Anderen” (“The Lives of Others”) won an Oscar as “Best Foreign Language Film” at the 79th Academy Awards.

The film came about because of  two things. First were many childhood memories of his visits to East Berlin and the GDR. As a boy of eight, nine or ten, FHvD has explained that he found it interesting and exciting to feel the fear of adults. His parents were afraid when they crossed the border: they were both born in the East and thus were more closely controlled by the police. Their friends from East Germany were afraid when other people saw that they were speaking with them, Germans from the West. Without these early experiences FHvD has said that he would have had trouble finding the right approach.

FHvD goes on to explain – “There was an image I saw in film school that I was never able to forget: the close-medium shot of a man sitting in a bleak room, wearing headphones and listening to beautiful music even though he did not want to hear it. This man pursued me in my dreams and evolved over the years into Captain Gerd Wiesler.”

Hauptmann 是東德時期秘密組織Stasi成員,專門調查東德人有否做出叛党叛國的行為然後進行秘密審訊. 他對共產黨和是次組織主張深信不疑,且非常有經驗并在大學里任教有關理論. Georg 是有名作家, 其女友Chrita Maria 則是個有名的話劇演員,在一次表演中被文化部長看中. 文化部長要Stasi監視調查Georg,看他是否對党忠誠. Hauptmann被化名HGW XX/7成為是次行動的主腦24小時竊聽和監視Georg.

在竊聽和監視Georg的過程中, 他開始投入他們的生活,被他們的人性,思想而感染．Chrita Maria在擔憂自己和Georg的文化前途下迫於文化部長的淫威就範，Georg得知此事後用諒解和愛對之．Chrita Maria矛盾痛苦不堪，Hauptmann偶遇Chrita Maria要她做回自己．Chrita Maria拒絕再和文化部長來往．

Georg有一個作曲家被竊聽和監視十幾年，且禁止發表任何作品，其後此人自殺了，他在Georg生日時送了＜好人交響曲＞給他．Georg在收到朋友自殺的電話後，沒說話，只走到鋼琴邊彈奏了＜好人交響曲＞，Hauptmann在竊聽時，聽了此鋼琴曲深深感動．Georg和Chrita Maria說,聽了此曲而受感動的人都不會壞到哪裡去的.

Georg自朋友死後覺得再也不能坐視不理,和一些激進的知識份子聯盟撰寫文章揭露政府. Georg和朋友們都認為他和Chrita Maria 的家是最安全的.Hauptmann不惜前途的坐牢的危險掩護Georg, 其後Georg在鏡報匿名發表了東德知識份子自殺的文章（用特殊打字機打成的文章）而引起哄動, Stasi要查出誰是作者.Hauptmann的上司兼好友開始懷疑他竊聽和監視Georg的報告，對其懷疑但苦無證據，文化部長因Chrita Maria 的爽約又將她捉去考問．Chrita Maria在見到Hauptmann極度恐懼中供出了Georg的特殊打字機的收藏在家的位置．Hauptmann早一步到Georg的家拿走了打字機．Chrita Maria在Stasi來搜屋時無法面對Georg而跑出街自殺．

1989年柏林圍牆倒下,無意中從當年文化部長的口中得知自己也曾經是共產黨Stasi竊聽和監視的對象.非常震驚,杳出原來當年受到了化名HGW XX/7的Hauptmann保護.兩年後Georg寫了＜一個好人交響曲＞來感謝HGW XX/7.

很感動的一部講述東德知識份子受政治迫害,共產黨的虚偽濫權令人髮指的行為. Hauptmann 是一人個完全受共產黨教育培養出來的精英,當他在竊聽Georg和Chrita Maria的生活點滴之後,反省,保留其人性的一面和尊嚴.很深刻的一部電影.

A subtle, finely-paced thriller about a Stasi agent in 1984 looking for incriminating evidence on a playwright seemingly loyal to East Germany’s socialist agenda. As the Stasi agent, the late Ulrich Mühe is perfect, his cold demeanor and minute facial expressions revealing a world of emotion. Never does he come across as some sort of stereotypical villain; if anything, the few scenes we get that focus on his private life show us a sad, pathetic individual who longs for some form of human connection. If I have any complaints, it’s that the story surrounding the writer is never quite as intense as I was hoping. It builds well, don’t get me wrong, and reaches a satisfying outcome, but The Lives of Others is more often a film that engages you intellectually than viscerally. As good as the writing, photography, and other actors’ performances are, though, it’s Muhe who easily steals the show.

A-

Anamaria Marinca in Cristian Mungiu's "4 Weeks, 3 Months, and 2 Days" (2007)

At the beginning of Cristian Mungiu’s Palme d’Or-winning film 4 Weeks, 3 Months, and 2 Days, the camera lingers on a goldfish in a square bowl. The fish seems to be trying to escape, not by jumping out, but by pushing directly against the glass, its tail thrusting spiritedly but without result.

It is an effective if too obvious metaphor for Romanian society under the latter days of communist strongman Nicolae Ceauşescu; the action here takes place in 1987, two years before the dictator’s fall. As the camera pulls back, we see that the bowl rests on a fold-out table in the dorm room of two female students at a regional technical college. The women are preparing for a trip of some kind. Gabita is packing a bag nervously, while Otilia ventures up and down the halls of the dorm, attempting to buy a pack of Kent cigarettes from a student-run black market dispensary two doors down, and purchasing soap for her friend to add to her baggage.

They are pretty young women, but otherwise average. Like most of their friends, they are criminals –- Ceauşescu’s economic policies had created intense shortages and had driven Romanians to participate regularly in the underground economy -– but they are in fact planning a much greater crime. Gabita is pregnant, and wants an abortion.

In Romania (unlike in the Soviet Union), abortion had been criminalized since 1966. In that year, Ceauşescu issued his infamous Decree 770, with which he sought to create a new Romania through a deliberately engineered baby boom. Thus 4 Weeks, 3 Months, and 2 Days is both a film about an abortion -– a harrowing one, at that -– and, perhaps more so, a film about what life is like when the law is an enemy rather than a friend.

Otilia (Anamaria Marinca) is a quietly confident young woman, accustomed to operating in a world of black markets and pervasive corruption. She is looking for Kents not because she wants to smoke them, but because she wants to trade them: she needs to get a hotel room at short notice for Gabita’s procedure, and bribing a desk clerk is the only way to pull this off. Gabita (Laura Vasiliu), by comparison, seems feckless and passive. Having been referred by a friend to a doctor who performs abortions, she unaccountably fails to call his preferred hotel to reserve a room in time, forcing Otilia to hurriedly find another. Later, ignoring the doctor’s instructions, she decides not to meet him in person, but to send Otilia instead. And with each failure to act, she sends a lie (she tells the doctor that Otilia is her sister) directed not at retrospectively justifying her passivity, but directed prospectively at ensuring that her passive approach will result in the end she desires. In a society built on lies and deceit, she’s an operator too.

Yet though their strategies and tricks have generally proved successful against the petty bureaucrats who enforce the regime’s minor rules, they turn out to be useless against a man like Doctor Bebe. A professional in his forties, Bebe seems at first to be nothing worse than a slightly grumpy father-figure. But once in their hotel room he begins gradually to weave a web of intimidation and fear. He points out the legal jeopardy they are all in already, and then, having exposed some of Gabita’s lies (including a rather big one concerning the stage of the pregnancy, which turns out to be worryingly close to the 5 months that defines “late term” — an abortion at this stage was punishable with a ten-year sentence under Romanian law), Bebe begins to hint that his payment will include sex with each of them. Naturally, they stall for time –- understandably unwilling to accept their own interpretation of his hints, and bewildered by this reversal in the expected progress of events -– and Bebe stages a furious walk-out in order to heighten their desperation and force them to agree. Terrified at being abandoned with their problem unresolved (how could they find a new doctor in the time available?), the women capitulate.

In his coercion of Gabita and Otilia, Bebe is an indirect product of the power of the state. Decree 770 offers desperate young women no other recourse than to break the law to procure an abortion, and thus forces them to seek help in a parallel world of anarchy and crime. Bebe rapes them because he can get away with it; he knows that they are both abjectly dependent on the service that only he can provide, and he knows that they are too terrified of arrest to report him for his crime. As inevitably occurs whenever the means to satisfy a human need or strong desire are banned, criminals occupy the void –- both to satisfy the need and to exploit the needy.

Yet Bebe is also a metaphor for that same power. He is a doctor, and so publicly claims to help the sick and the vulnerable. And, no doubt, he does so. Yet like a corrupt bureaucracy, he has a cynical eye on the side benefits that his services, and his position of power, can bring him. Thus he is capable of both grievously harming Gabita through rape, and afterwards, helping her by clinically and brusquely performing the desired abortion. Bebe even sounds like the government. In his increasingly one-sided negotiation with the women, he manages to sound disappointed, aggrieved, and bullying from one moment to the next. He speaks elliptically and vaguely, leaving Gabita and Otilia to attempt to restate more clearly what they think he meant, and then he scolds them for not listening to what he declares are his clear and repeated instructions. In both action and word, Bebe is the personification of the Romanian state under Ceauşescu.

Mungiu’s film is especially powerful in its portrayal of the long hours that follow the rapes and the abortion. Gabita and Otilia have sex with Bebe one after the other, so they pass each other in the bathroom: as one is finishing washing herself, the other enters. They do not look at each other. There is no solidarity in victimhood here; each woman has locked herself in her own private world of shame and shock. Once Bebe has left, and Gabita is confined to bed waiting for her miscarriage to begin, Otilia verbally reviews her friend’s lies, conducting her interrogation in a monotone of disbelief and suppressed fury. Yet the conversation peters out: Otilia is seeking the lie that led to this horrible event, but cannot put her finger on it. Otilia has to content herself with blaming Gabita in the most general of senses, but even this is little more than self-deception of the most ancient female type. Violence has been done to us; somehow we must have brought it on ourselves.

Though Gabita has been ordered not to move, Otilia has promised to attend her boyfriend’s mother’s birthday party, and her absence will be noticed. She leaves Gabita on the bed; their goodbyes are perfunctory, both women now emotionally withdrawn and exhausted. Once at the party, Otilia is quickly shepherded into the dining room and wedged between her boyfriend’s parents. The camera focuses on her for a long scene. All around her are middle aged professionals -– doctors mainly -– who chatter on about various banal and bourgeois topics (including a poignantly ignorant complaint about the spoiled children of today), and all the while Otilia’s face moves back and forth between polite smiles and flashes of stunned anxiety –- though whether she’s thinking about her friend’s condition or reliving the day’s horror is never clear. Over her shoulder broods her attentive but perplexed lover, who can neither understand her situation (even if he knew it) nor connect with her in any useful way. Surrounded by a generous and happy family, she is as alone as she can possibly be.

Mungiu’s long takes are particularly effective in portraying both discomfort and endurance. There are no short cuts offered, no way to escape the scene nor to shorten the time required to get to the other side. It is not enough for this director to simply trigger a flush of sympathy, or to convey only the idea of suffering. The situation must be lived, lived both in real time and wholly unadorned. Throughout the dinner table scene –- throughout the movie, in fact -– not a note of music is heard.

This refusal to use the tricks of the filmmaker’s trade to provoke emotional responses in the audience is one of the things that separates this film from another recent release set in Eastern Europe in the 1980s: Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck’s DasLeben der Anderen (“The Lives of Others”, 2006), which tells the story of a top Stasi officer assigned to the surveillance of East Germany’s most popular (and apparently loyal) playwright and director, Georg Dreyman (Sebastian Koch). Though considered an “independent” film – perhaps only because it was made in Europe — The Lives of Others has a classical build: a beautiful score, lovely cinematography and set design, short scene lengths, quick pacing, and plenty of plot twists to build suspense.

It also depicts communist oppression at its most, for lack of a better word, glamorous. Both observer and observed are at the top of their professional games, and the surveillance itself springs from political machinations at the highest ministerial level. The playwright lives with his beautiful girlfriend, the famed actress Christa-Maria Sieland (Martina Gedeck), and their parties host the most prestigious and talented of East Germany’s literati. When Dreyman finally decides to abandon the fine line between truth and loyalty he’s been tiptoeing down his entire career, his crime –- to pen an anonymous essay on the plague of suicide in the country, and to publish it in a West German newsmagazine — is of the highest political order. His Western editor smuggles an untraceable typewriter to him, so that if the manuscript is intercepted Dreyman himself will not be arrested. And all the while, the officer who has bugged his apartment (played by Ulrich Mühe, a well-respected German actor who died of cancer the year after the film was released) is wrestling with his own beliefs as his surveillance task exposes him to political debates and European culture for the first time.

Yet perhaps all of this beauty and high drama is the film’s Achilles heel. Its subject is too exceptional to serve as a comment on the lives of average East Germans – “the lives of others” is just that: not us. The film’s colour palette, though subdued and drab, is richly, gorgeously so. And a key conceit of the film, that hardened ideologues will turn into humanists if only they are confronted with the great cultural heritage of Europe, is simply naïve. Though moving and well-made, The Lives of Others is fundamentally a Western film about the East, and it occupies itself with many of the West’s favorite themes: a tale about heroic dissidents, brave Western journalists, and, if you’ll forgive the phrase, the power of love.

In 4 Months, 3 Weeks, and 2 Days, by contrast, the power of love and friendship is as weak and conditional as it is in real life. By the end of the film, Gabita still has not said sorry to her friend. It is a mark of this film’s honesty that Otilia doesn’t even expect her to.

Sebastian Koch and Martina Gedeck in "The Lives of Others" (2006)

Caution: This is not a movie review. Contains spoilers.

The Lives of Others (  German: Das Leben der Anderen) is an Oscar (and multiple) award winning film set in East Germany and directed by Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck. After having seen this flick nearly 2 years after its international debut, I think that this is one of the best Political films you will ever see and certainly one of the best movies made in the last 10 years.  The film’s about a wiretapping expert who’s under the orders of the Ministry of Arts & Culture to spy and gather evidence that a famous playwright has anti-Socialist ideologies. 

Gerd Weisler (Ulrich Muhe), a staunch supporter of Socialism, is a interrogation expert who uses unusual methods of coercion to breakdown the suspects. He’s appointed by the Ministry of Culture and Arts to spy on a popular playwright Georg Dreyman (Sebastian Koch) and his lover Christa-Maria (Martina Gedeck). A wiretapping expert by profession, Weisler with the help of Statsi agents puts Dreyman’s apartment under complete surveillance and everyday he begins his strenuous job of listening to the suspects’ conversations and reporting them to his superiors. Over a period of time, he begins to empathize with the situation of the writers and he becomes increasingly compassionate towards them. Untill one day, when all hell breaks loose and…

First things first, I had read about this film couple of years ago and the curiosity to watch this film just doubled after it won the Academy Award for Best Foreign language film in 2007. Earlier this year, I was disappointed for having missed this film at a film festival and finally the long wait culminated in the first week of June, 2009. The day I saw the film, I realised why this film figures in the Top 10 films of 2007 list of many critics.  It’s so damn brilliant, period! One of my friends even told me that a lot of people were clapping in the cinema hall when it was screened in Chennai, India. That’s an unusual and overwhelming reception for a foreign film especially in India.

Coming back to the movie, as the story unfolds Weisler is shown as a cold hearted, staunch supporter of Socialist-Communist Government who is hell bent on proving that the playwright has been plotting against the regime. But when he realises what the community of writers have been scheming he becomes increasingly sympathetic to their idelogies and even goes to the extent of protecting them from all forms of danger. One of the landmark scenes of the film has absolutely no dialogues. And all it has is Weisler paying attention to a Sonata which Dreyman plays on his piano when the latter comes to know about his friend, Jerska’s death. This scene will continue to haunt me for as long as I can remember this movie for several reasons, namely:

1. The music comes straight from Dreyman’s instant reaction upon receiving the news about his friend’s death. This melts Weisler’s heart who’s secretly listening to the music. You can look into his eyes and tell that he’s deeply affected.

2. The once impenetrable and cold hearted Weisler suddenly seems vulnerable.

3. This scene show that despite the mask we wear for the outside world, there’s certain amount of sympathy, heart & soul in all of us.

4. This single scene sets the tempo for what turns out to be a masterpiece.

5. Despite not having even a single line of dialogue this is probably one of the best scenes in the whole movie….all the emotions are brought to life by the remarkable performance of Weisler and Dreyman.

On the other hand, Dreyman who does have anti-socialist ideologies is wary about the government’s decision to ban his work. His dilemma is best explained in his dialogue with his lover, Christa-Maria on more than one occasion. Initially Dreyman doesn’t care about the Government’s decision is and proclaims that he will continue to write. But Christa Maria convinces him saying that his work needs people and their support and if his work is banned then there will not be any purpose to his life. Dreyman’s life and his ambitions change when his friend, Jerska commits suicide. With the help of few of his friends, Dreyman plans to write an article on the record  number of suicides of his countrymen and fellow writers which are marked as deaths due to natural causes in the government’s records. This number, as we are told, is only surpassed by those in Hungary. When his article is finally published, the survillence on him increases manifold. He slowly realises that Maria is having an affair with the minister much to his despair. But, the genuine lover he is, Dreyman understands  the circumstances under which Maria succumbs to the pressure. Twice in the course of the film, his house is ransacked by the agents of the government who eventually return empty handed. It’s only after the fall of GDR that Dreyman comes to know about Weisler’s existence and the extent to which the latter had helped him.

The film also throws some light on the tactics used by the erstwhile regime of GDR to subdue any information which individuals might use against the government. Thus form of censorship is both a bane and a boon at the same time to the writer’s community. Echoing one of the protogonists’ opinion, the censorship and the socio-economic conditions inspire the writers to lash out at the policies adopted by the government, in their writings but on the other hand there’s a definite possibility that their work will be banned for the same reason. The wire tapping, electronic and telephonic surveillance, coercion and submissive methods to extract information from the suspects are a nightmare. I can’t imagine the state of life under such circumstances and untill that happens probably I won’t understand what freedom means to me as an individual. Probably the very reason we write as we think is our quest for freedom and the fact that it exists for others to read is perhaps one of the best examples of freedom.

 It’s unfair to write about the actors/actresses and all other technicians associated with the movie. I fear that I might fall short of superlatives and adjectives. Calling them fantastically awesome will be an insult. Everything about them and the film is brilliant! If you are looking for a genuine masterpiece which reminds you about how beautiful our lives are, then “The Lives of Others” is the movie you should be watching. Because it’s not often when lives of others are so dreadful yet so full of hope and persistence.

Rent It, Buy It, Steal It, Download it….whatever you do, don’t miss this movie. It’s a well written story which has some terrific action brought to life by stupendous cinematography, background score, editing, screenplay and direction. Two thumbs up…if you call yourself a genuine movie buff and haven’t seen this movie, you definitely are missing a brave and beautiful film.

P.S: It’s doesn’t belong to the genre of thriller/suspense. But be prepared for some edge of the action sequences..:)

Photo courtesy-Wikipedia

Das Lebon der Anderen – ( The Life of Others )

Before the Fall of the Berlin Wall, East Germany’s Secret Police Listened to Your Secrets

 trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n3_iLOp6IhM

Wiesler’s old classmate, now his superior, Lt. Colonel Grubitz, assigns him to spy on playwright Georg Dreyman, who is suspected of pro-Western sympathies. Stasi agents secretly enter Dreyman’s flat, install small microphones and then monitor activity from the attic space above.
Wiesler soon finds out that the real reason behind the surveillance is that a minister named Hempf desires Dreyman’s girlfriend, actress Christa-Maria Sieland. Dreyman’s arrest would rid Hempf of a rival. Wiesler, a true believer in the socialist regime, is disillusioned by a minister abusing his powers for personal interests.
Christa-Maria lives with Dreyman but secretly also sees Hempf, fearing the consequences of refusing such a powerful man.
Due to Wiesler’s secret intervention, Dreyman discovers the liaison and a week later confronts Christa-Maria, asking her not to see Hempf. Christa-Maria defends her behaviour, arguing that they are both in bed with the regime in order to be allowed to continue their artistic careers, and leaves.
Dreyman, though a faithful socialist, disapproves of the way dissidents are treated, and quietly stands up for those he thinks unfairly treated. One friend, Jerska, is a director who has been blacklisted.
Jerska gives Dreyman a sheet of music to a piece titled “Sonata for a Good Man”, and shortly afterwards commits suicide. This finally spurs Dreyman into speaking out against the regime. He arranges to anonymously publish an article on carefully concealed suicide rates in the GDR in the West German magazine Der Spiegel.
Though Wiesler intended his inactivity to be a one-off move, his compassion for the couple grows and he continues to lie in his reports to protect Dreyman, and also reduces surveillance hours, so that he no longer has to share the work with an assistant.
Meanwhile, the minister, angered by Christa-Maria’s refusal, orders Grubitz to destroy her. Grubitz and his men catch her red-handed in the act of illegally purchasing prescription drugs. She is arrested and, under pressure, reveals Dreyman’s authorship of the suicide article. The house is searched by security officials, but fail to find the typewriter, as Christa-Maria had concealed the hiding-place under the threshold. After this failure, Grubitz calls in Wiesler to interrogate Christa-Maria but warns him that a failure to produce results will cost them both.
Meanwhile, the minister, angered by Christa-Maria’s refusal, orders Grubitz to destroy her. Grubitz and his men catch her red-handed in the act of illegally purchasing prescription drugs. She is arrested and, under pressure, reveals Dreyman’s authorship of the suicide article. The house is searched by security officials, but fail to find the typewriter, as Christa-Maria had concealed the hiding-place under the threshold. After this failure, Grubitz calls in Wiesler to interrogate Christa-Maria but warns him that a failure to produce results will cost them both.
Wiesler interrogates Christa-Maria (with Grubitz watching through a two-way mirror) with the same flawlessness that characterized him for years. She breaks down and tells him where the typewriter is hidden. During a second search, the secret hiding-place is opened, but is found empty. Wiesler, in his determination to protect the couple, had rushed to the flat in advance of the Stasi search team, removed the typewriter and hidden it in his car. During the search, Christa-Maria storms out of the flat in shame, runs into the street and is hit by a truck. Wiesler, who is waiting outside the building, is unable to help her and tries to tell her that he has removed the typewriter. Dreyman arrives at the scene and Christa-Maria dies in his arms.

After Christa-Maria’s death, the surveillance is called off. Wiesler is demoted to Department M, to tediously steam-open letters all day with no chance for promotion until he retires. Four years and seven months later, Wiesler is in the middle of opening letters when a co-worker with a radio notifies him of the fall of the Berlin Wall. Upon hearing the news, Wiesler and his co-workers leave their workplace.
After German reunification, Dreyman learns from Hempf (who is now a successful businessman) that he was under intensive surveillance. Probing into his Stasi file, he finds out that, while agent “HGW XX/7″ had heard Dreyman’s activity against the regime, such as the publication of the suicide article, he had fabricated stories that had prevented Dreyman from being found out.
Two years later, Dreyman publishes a novel, The Sonata of Good Men. Wiesler sees the book advertised in a bookstore, and finds that it is dedicated “To HGW XX/7, with gratitude”. He goes to buy the book and, when asked if he wants it gift wrapped, he responds: “No, it’s for me.”

Lets see now what the Rolling Stones mag has to say abt it..

Using the thread of that story line, the director weaves a complex political thriller that touches an emotional chord. All the performances are top-tier — Koch is a star in the making — but it’s Muhe who leaves the deepest impression. Playing a robot of a man astonished to find his armor pierced by humanity, Muhe crafts a portrait as mesmerizing as it is memorable. In a surprise coda, set in the early 1990s, the film raises the stakes, striking provocatively at the hidden agendas behind homeland security. It’s an ending you don’t see coming, yet it feels totally right. Von Donnersmarck has crafted the best kind of movie: one you can’t get out of your head.

Director:

Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck

„Cocker Spaniel and Other Tools of International Understanding“
Ausstellung in der Ursula Blickle Stiftung Unteröwisheim

Picasso und Warhol hatten Dackel, Schopenhauer hatte einen Pudel, Baselitz einen Spaniel und Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck hat Respekt vorm „Dobermann“. Das zumindest legt der knapp fünfminütige schwarz-weiß Film gleichen Titels nahe, mit dem der spätere Oscarpreisträger sein Filmregie-Studium an der Hochschule für Fernsehen und Film in München abschließt. Der Kurzfilm aus den Jahr 1999, der mit einem Ausrutscher in einem Hundehaufen beginnt und der in eine Verfolgungsjagd mündet, ist eine der skurrilen Arbeiten, die in der Ausstellung der Ursula Blickle Stiftung „Cocker Spaniel and Other Tools of International Understanding“ zu sehen ist.

Vom Jagd-, Wach-, Spür- und Kampfhund bis zum Schoßhündchen, das Spektrum der Mensch-Hund-Beziehung ist groß und ebenso die hundaffine Künstlerschar. Gemälde, Fotos, Skulpturen, Installationen zeigen neben einer Reihe von Videos, teils mit dokumentarischem Charakter wie Oleg Kuliks „Mad Dog Performance“, die Bandbreite vom Hundeadel einer Fotostrecke rassiger Windhunde (Jo Longhurst: „I know, what you’re thinking“) bis zum großformatigen Gemälde des Siegers bei einem Wettbewerb der hässlichsten Pinscher (Santiago Ydánez: „Untiteled Dog“).

Namhafte Maler wie Baselitz („Ein roter Hund abwärts“), Immendorff („Frontis-Piss“) und Cosima von Bonin („Dickwurst d’accord“) sind ebenso verstörend, wie die „Meute“, acht präparierte Kampfhunde von Jochem Hendricks, „Misfit“, ein Hybrid hinter Glas aus Pitbull und Reh von Thomas Grünfeld oder tierisch-satirischen Anwandlungen wie „Aus der Mappe der Hundigkeit“ (was übersetzt für Zynismus steht) Peter Weibel, der sich von Valie Export auf allen Vieren an der Leine Gassi führen lässt. Zu den liebenswert ironischen Varianten gehören Rosemarie Trockels Bronze „Gewohnheitstier“, Antony Gormleys „Lost Dog“ aus nachgebildeten Kugellagern oder Marta Klonowskas Hündchen und Rokoko-Schühchen aus blauen Glassplittern, zwei Motive dem Gemälde „Portrait of Young Girl with Dog“ von Charles d’Agar entnommen.

Bilder die bellen, beißen nicht. Ob „Wau!“ oder  „Wow!“, fern vom Kitschverdacht ist die Ausstellung „Cocker Spaniel and Other Tools of International Understanding“ ein Vergnügen für Hundefreunde wie Hundefeinde. Die zeitgenössische Schau endet mit einer Finissage am 11. Oktober, bevor sie, erweitert um historische Gemälde, in die Kunsthalle Kiel wandert.

Info: Finissage „Cocker Spaniel and Other Tools of International Understanding“ in der Ursula Blickle Stiftung Unteröwisheim, am Sonntag, den 11.Oktober ab 16 Uhr

Film de Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck, avec Thomas Thieme, Martina Gedeck, Ulrich Mühe (2007)

Le cinéma allemand se porte décidément bien. Après La Chute et l’Expérience, d’Oliver Hirschbiegel, ou encore Goodbye Lenin, de Wolfgang Becker, voici un autre film de grande qualité provenant d’outre-Rhin. Un film qui, là encore, jongle avec le passé récent de l’Allemagne et avec des considérations politiques qui n’auraient sans doute pas droit de cité en France. Un film intelligent, qui sonne juste, et qui, sans complaisance, trace un croquis fidèle de la réalité de la vie des gens derrière le rideau de fer.

Nous sommes en RDA, en 1984. L’auteur à succès Georg Dreyman et sa compagne, l’actrice Christa-Maria Sieland, sont considérés comme faisant partie de l’élite des intellectuels de l’Etat socialiste. Ils montent des pièces de théâtre dans lesquelles le tout-Berlin Est se presse.

Le Ministère de la Culture commence à s’intéresser à Christa et dépêche un agent secret, nommé Wiesler, ayant pour mission de l’observer. Celui-ci fait partie de l’élite de la Stasi, c’est l’un des meilleurs éléments de la police politique ; il enseigne aux jeunes recrues les techniques les plus habiles d’interrogatoires, histoire de faire parler à coup sûr ceux qui complotent contre l’Etat.

A vrai dire, les motivations du ministre de la Culture ne sont guère avouables. Mais là n’est pas la question.

Tandis que Wiesler progresse dans l’enquête, le couple d’intellectuels le fascine de plus en plus. Sans prendre fait et cause pour eux, il sera amené à jauger son engagement politique, son travail au gouvernement, à l’aune du reste d’humanité qui l’habite encore. Un peu comme un 1984 à l’envers.

Outre les désormais bien connues méthodes oppressives des régimes totalitaires, où tout est basé sur le soupçon réciproque, le rôle clef des informateurs, les chantages et autres violences psychologiques, ce film sonne juste. A l’instar de La Chute, l’Allemagne qu’il décrit est sans complaisance, quoique les habitants s’en satisfasse bon gré mal gré. Histoire d’exorciser des démons, de considérer aussi avec intelligence le spectateur.

Un très bon film donc, pour deux raisons : la fidélité historique des événements, des lieux, des personnages, avec un Ulrich Mühe plus sadique que nature (lui qui était excellent dans Amen, et dont j’attends avec impatience la prestation dans le futur Mein Führer – Die wirklich wahrste Wahrheit über Adolf Hitler) ; et d’autre part, pour le traitement impressionniste et subtil de la dualité qui oppose l’idéal auquel il croit sincèrement et la réalité du dévoiement du pouvoir. Qui d’une certaine façon complète parfaitement la lecture d’une Hannah Arendt.