
            The Lives of Others is at once a political thriller and a human drama. The film opens in East Berlin in 1984 with a sequence that alternates scenes from an interrogation with scenes from a training class for aspiring officers of the Stasi, or secret police. Stasi Captain Gerd Wiesler (Ulrich Mühe), code name HGW XX/7, is demonstrating his interrogation technique using audio of his own interrogation of a suspect. Wiesler instructs the students on how to tell whether a subject is lying. A student asks a question that Wiesler judges to be a bit too compassionate (read "bourgeois"), and the professor marks the student's name on the attendance record: surely this student has just flunked the course, or worse. During the feature's first thirty minutes, writer/director Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck draws a portrait of Wiesler that borders on caricature: Wiesler is a highly skilled officer of the Stasi, a proud, zealous, disciplined and entirely cold-blooded professional. He is one of the many cogs in the wheel of "the System," working anonymously and tirelessly, convinced that his efforts are building a better Socialist society.At the end of the class, Lieutenant-Colonel Anton Grubitz (Ulrich Tukur), Wiesler's old school friend (and probably his only friend), who has risen to the position of head of the Culture Department at Stasi, comes to invite Wiesler to a theatrical premiere. The play is by the celebrated East German playwright Georg Dreyman (Sebastian Koch), and its leading character is played by Dreyman's lover, Christa-Maria Sieland (Martina Gedeck), an actress of great reputation. Dreyman, who writes plays about the heroic proletariat, lives a rather comfortable life in a plush East Berlin apartment, enjoying a certain notoriety among DDR officials who value him because he's one of the few East German writers whose work is read in the west. He preserves the respect of the artistic community by using his (relatively) secure position for occasional interventions in favor of dissident fellow artists. Wiesler at once suspects that Dreyman's loyalty to the party is not as strong as it would seem on the surface, even if the high party officials are convinced.Following the performance Grubitz has a brief conversation regarding Dreyman with Culture Minister Bruno Hempf (Thomas Thieme), who also attended. Hempf is attracted to the leading lady. However, since Dreyman is in the way, he must somehow be eliminated. Hempf, who happens also to be a member of the ZK ("Zentralkomitee") which has authority over the Stasi, tells Grubitz about his reservations regarding the playwright's loyalty to the SED ("Sozialistische Einheitspartei Deutschlands," or Socialist Unity Party), suggesting full-scale surveillance of Dreyman. Grubitz, always eager to better his own political future, asks his friend Wiesler to manage this procedure (the highest level of monitoring of suspected individuals), code-named "Lazlo." (Laszlo is a Hungarian name -- perhaps a reference to the high suicide rates in Hungary, which we'll touch on later.) Soon after, Hempf meets Dreyman and Sieland at a party, and in a rather unsubtle way lets Christa-Maria know of his feelings toward her. He also tweaks Dreyman about the naiveté of the belief displayed in his plays that people change; Hempf is convinced that people never change.Wiesler stalks Dreyman, noting his comings and goings, and while the playwright is away he has Dreyman's apartment systematically bugged. As the bugging team leaves the apartment, Wiesler notices that a neighbor is watching them through the peephole in her door. He knocks and tells the neighbor that if she tells anyone what she saw, her daughter will lose her place at university. Wiesler sets up his surveillance headquarters in the attic, just above the apartment.As Dreyman and Sieland prepare for a party in the flat in honor of Dreyman's fortieth birthday, Sieland presents him with a necktie and reminds him that he promised to wear it. She wonders if he knows how to tie it, and he replies that he's from the middle class and grew up wearing ties; he's since had to transcend his background (presumably to succeed in a socialist state). When he goes into the hall to put on the tie, though, it becomes clear that he was not telling the truth, and he makes a mess of it. He nips across the landing to knock on his neighbor's door and ask her to tie it for him. She comes into his apartment and ties the tie competently, but she's so nervous (about the surveillance) that Dreyman asks whether she's sick -- but of course she can't tell him what's the matter. The neighbor goes home with Christa-Maria none the wiser; she's mildly impressed at Dreyman's unexpected skill with a necktie.At the party Dreyman's close friend, theater director Albert Jerska (Volkmar Kleinert), is shunned by the other guests. Because Jerska has been blacklisted for his anti-government opinions he hasn't been able to work for years; now people are afraid to be seen talking to him. Jerska's birthday gift to Dreyman is sheet music for a work called Sonata for a Good Man.In a lunchtime scene at Stasi headquarters, a young agent starts to tell a joke about SED leader Erich Honecker. He's overheard and forced to finish it by Grubitz, who then threatens to have him transferred to the most low-level, soul-crushingly boring job available, and finally claims he was kidding.Soon Wiesler's observations indicate that, contrary to his prejudices toward artists as free-thinkers, Dreyman's attitude toward the DDR and its SED is not particularly scornful. In the meantime, Christa-Maria has been "convinced" by Minister Hempf to be receptive to his advances, and when Wiesler finds out about this development, it dawns on him that maybe Operation Lazlo has more to do with the libido of the Minister than with the DDR's security. From his surveillance post, Wiesler makes Dreyman's doorbell ring to draw Dreyman down to the street door in time to see the minister drop Sieland off and tell her when she must meet him again.Dreyman is provoked to take action by the awareness of his lover's coerced sexual relationship with the minister and the suicide of his blacklisted friend Jerska. After learning of Jerska's death, Dreyman sits at his piano and plays the piece Jerska gave him, the Sonata for a Good Man. Wiesler, listening in the attic, is moved to tears by the music. Christa-Maria comes in and Dreyman quotes Lenin saying if he'd kept listening to Beethoven's Appassionata he'd never have finished the revolution. Then he asks, "Can anyone who has heard this music, I mean truly heard it, really be a bad person?"In the following scene, a small child in an elevator asks Wiesler if he's really with the Stasi, and confides that his father says Stasi agents are bad men who put people in prison. Wiesler starts to ask the boy his father's name, but stops himself.The film showcases Wiesler's empty life -- he apparently has no family -- in an episode with a prostitute. After sex he asks her to stay a little while, but she has another appointment. Saying that he needs to reserve any time he wants in advance, she leaves him alone.Dreyman resolves to help reveal the true face of the DDR government to the outside world. With the help of well-positioned West Germans who provide him with a typewriter that can't be traced back to him, he plans to publish an anonymous exposé in one of the leading West German weeklies, Der Spiegel. The article concerns the DDR government's cover-up of the high suicide rate in East Germany; the government stopped collecting suicide statistics in 1977, at which time East Germany's suicide rate was higher than that of every other country in Europe except for Hungary.As they work on the article, Dreyman's friends worry about being overheard. Dreyman is sure his apartment isn't bugged, but his friends suspect otherwise. They devise a test: a contact in West Germany comes to visit Dreyman's flat and they discuss his plans to return to West Germany with his son, an East German citizen, hidden under the seat of his car. They describe the car, a gold Mercedes, and the intended route, then announce their departure. Wiesler hears everything but decides not to tip off the border guards. When the car makes it across the border, Dreyman and his friends conclude that his apartment is safe and unbugged.Wiesler has heard enough by now to know that Dreyman is writing something that will be smuggled out for publication in West Germany; he's in a position to provide a victory to the DDR and a feather in his own professional cap by foiling Dreyman's plot. However, Wiesler is starting to waver in his determination to bring Operation Lazlo to its conclusion. In the process of snooping in his victims' everyday lives, including their love lives, he has unconsciously been drawn into their world, which in turn has put his own in question. At one point, he approaches a despondent Christa-Maria in a café to tell her how much he admires her work. She replies that he's a good man. He does not tell her his name. When Wiesler returns to the surveillance post, he learns that Christa-Maria went home to Dreyman, skipping her appointment with the minister, and that she won't see the minister again.When Dreyman's article is finally published in the West, it is a public disaster for the DDR, and the playwright becomes a prime suspect. Grubitz is incredulous that with all his expertise, Wiesler could have missed the indications that Dreyman was writing the article. (Wiesler, like Dreyman, has relied on Dreyman's cover story that he's writing a play in honor of the DDR's 40th anniversary.) Minister Hempf uses Christa-Maria's drug addiction as an excuse to have her arrested and threatens to terminate her acting career unless she collaborates with the authorities and denounces her lover as the author of the embarrassing article, which she does. The Stasi searches Dreyman's apartment, but comes up empty-handed.Now Wiesler, who had withheld evidence concerning the source of the article, must decide where his allegiances lie: with the DDR and his brilliant career as a top Stasi officer, or with Dreyman and Christa-Maria, whose honest lives he has come to appreciate. In a tense scene, he sits in an interrogation room as Christa-Maria is brought in, knowing that she will recognize him from their encounter at the café and that Grubitz is watching through the one-way glass. But Sieland is too good an actress to give anything away. Wiesler offers her a choice: never work in the theater again, or become an informant and tell him where Dreyman has hidden the typewriter he used to write the suicide article. He tells her that they already have enough evidence to put Dreyman in jail, so there's nothing she can do for him, but she can save herself and hide her involvement with the Stasi. She agrees, miserably.Wiesler rushes to reach Dreyman's apartment before the rest of the Stasi search team. He extracts the typewriter from its hiding-place and spirits it away. A newly released Christa-Maria comes home and feeds Dreyman a line about being away in the country; she's in the shower when the Stasi team arrives and she emerges in her bathrobe in time to see Grubitz start to pry up the floorboard that still, she believes, conceals the typewriter. She makes bleak eye contact with Dreyman, who knows she must have told them where to look. She leaves the house before Grubitz can get the board up to reveal -- nothing. When she reaches the street, Christa-Maria steps deliberately into the path of a truck and is hit. Wiesler speaks to her briefly as she lies bleeding in the road, but retreats as Dreyman embraces her and apologizes; he believes she removed the typewriter. She dies. Grubitz, who seems slightly abashed by this development, calls off the investigation. However, he tells Wiesler that although Wiesler was clever enough to leave no tracks, Grubitz knows he covered for Dreyman. Grubitz assures Wiesler that he will spend the remaining 20 years of his career steaming open the correspondence of his fellow citizens in a dank Stasi basement.About five years later Wiesler is, indeed, steaming letters open in a basement office; a colleague behind him is listening to the radio. (It's the same young officer who got in trouble for telling a joke about SED leader Erich Honecker -- demoted despite Grubnitz's assurance that he was kidding about punishing him.) The young officer hears on the radio that the Berlin Wall has fallen and shares his earpiece so Wiesler can listen too. When Wiesler gets up and walks out of the Stasi office, the other workers follow him.Two years later, Dreyman runs into ex-Minister Hempf (who has survived the political upheaval very well, thank you), and asks him why his (Dreyman's) apartment was never bugged. Hempf (before throwing in a spurious insult about Dreyman's inability to sexually satisfy Christa-Maria) assures Dreyman that his home was thoroughly bugged, tells him about Operation Lazlo, and advises him to look behind his light switches. Dreyman does so, and then visits the Stasi archives, which have been made public. In the lengthy records of Operation Lazlo, he discovers gaps covering evidence that would have been damning, along with beneficial misinformation, all attributed to a Stasi agent identified as HGW XX/7. He also learns that Christa-Maria was released from custody too late to have extracted the typewriter from its hiding place, and he notices a red fingerprint on one of the pages -- left there by an agent who must have handled the mysteriously missing typewriter with its distinctive red ribbon. The file's final entry notes the transfer and demotion of HGW XX/7, who is blamed for the failure of the operation. Dreyman looks up HGW XX/7's real name and tracks down Wiesler (who now delivers mail for a living), but doesn't speak to him.Two year later still, Wiesler walks past a bookstore advertising a new release with huge posters of the author's face. The book, billed as a novel, is called Sonata for a Good Man, and the author is Georg Dreyman. Wiesler goes inside, opens a copy, and reads the dedication: to HGW XX/7, in gratitude. At the checkout counter the clerk asks whether he should giftwrap the book, and Wiesler replies, "no, it's for me."
    

The Lives of Others


            
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Line of Separation

The Verdict


            The film begins on a nude beach in Germany in the late 1960s, where we are introduced to Ulrike Meinhoff, a respected journalist, and her family. Meinhoff and her husband are then guests at a party, where Meinhoff reads off a periodical that she wrote about the injustice of the Iranian Government. With the Shah of Persia arriving into Berlin, there is a rally in the streets, where half the people are protesting the injustice and the other half are praising. As the protesting goes on, the Iranian people end up going into the crowd and fighting the innocent German protesters with the help of the German Police; leaving many injured and a man killed. The next scene is of Meinhoff at a television studio arguing why she favors the protesters side instead of the Governments side, and watching the live recording on her television is Gudrun Ensslin, another activist. She explains to her parents how American Imperialism is completely corrupt while Meinhoff walks in on her husband having sex with another woman. Next, we are introduced to Andreas Baader, the ringleader of these revolutionaries who decide to name themselves The Red Army Faction (RAF). Their first major rebellious occurrence takes place in a department store, where they decide to set home made bombs and light it on fire. On a television broadcast we are informed of the many student protests at universities across America and of protests in West Germany, being led by Rudi Dutschke. The film then cuts to a famous rally where Dutschke announced his views on the protest and wars occurring around the world, trying to spark everyone to join their resistance. Rudi Dutschke is then almost assassinated by a man who is accused to be from the Springer Group, which is tied to the German Government. In effect, many activists go to the Springer Group headquarters and riot. As we see there are many demonstrating protesters rioting around the world, Baader and Ensslin are in court confessing about the department store fires. As her parents discuss how they are surprised by her actions, Meinhoff eavesdrops and takes heavy interest in what they say about Ensslin. While Ensslin is in jail, Meinhoff decides to visit her and finds out that she is dedicated to fighting back against the German State. The next scene introduces Peter Boock, an activist that was almost beat to death for fighting back to police in jail, and we see that the RAF now has a main house for everyone to stay in. With the new Chancellor of Germany claiming that the rebellion will diminish soon, a man that runs the terrorist unit disagrees, stating that he believes it is only going to get worse. Baader and Ensslin leave Germany and go to Italy in 1970, where they meet their lawyer to talk about some things. He exclaims that they come back to Berlin illegally, saying that a new revolutionary group has formed and they have access to weapons, guns, money, etc. To make sure that the lawyer is not all talk, Baader demands that he empties a womans purse; which he does. Baader and Ensslin head to Berlin, where they go to Meinhoffs house to crash, saying that they have come back to Germany to change the political situation or die trying. As Baader speeds down the freeway in a stolen car, he gets pulled over and taken to prison, for the German Government wants him. In effect, Ensslin demands that they get him out right away, for he cannot wait ten months in prison. With Meinhoff setting up a fake interview with Baader at a Social Institute, Ensslin and the others plan on raiding the place with guns so Baader can escape; it is a success. This is a turning point in the film because Meinhoff decided to jump out the window with the revolutionists instead of just sitting in the room pretending not to know what happened. The escape is publicized heavily on German television, calling Baader, Ensslin, and Meinhoff terrorists and they head off to Jordan to get some military training. In Jordan, Baader has several falling outs, especially with Meinhoffs significant other, who becomes a traitor to the group and decides he wants to go back to Germany. After the training, they head back to West Berlin where they rob several banks, using their skills they received in Jordan. Being named Germany Most Wanted, the Baader- Meinhoff group is announced to by sympathized with by an estimated 7 million people in Germany, which makes it so hard for them to be brought to justice. The terrorist unit exclaims that they can mathematically find the terrorist group by using Government official reports because it will inevitably lead to where the group is living. The next scene is a changing point, two members of the group are killed in a shoot out with police after trying to flee from a police block on the road. In effect, the Baader-Meinhoff group claims that to be war and goes ahead and sets off bombs at police headquarters, U.S. Embassy, and other government buildings. The German Government decides to have all government officials are under federal control for one day in West Germany so they can track down the remaining members of the RAF. The next scene consists of Baader and two other RAF members finally being arrested, just before retrieving more bombs from a garage to do some more damage on the country. After Baader is arrested, Ensslin also gets arrested when she is shopping for some new clothes, and Meinhoff gets arrested when police raid their hide out. In prison, all the major members of the RAF are separated and put into isolation. On television, everyone watches the tragedies that happened at the Munich Olympic Games with the Israeli team and it stuns Germany, claiming that this violent state is not over yet. The film cuts to 7 months later, where Meinhoff talks about how life in prison is the absolute worst; so the whole group decides to go on a hunger strike, demanding that they get better treatment just because they are political revolutionists. Next, Holger Meins, who is dying in jail, does not get any help from a doctor to try to save his life, he exclaims that they are allowing him to die, which he does. With the RAF member trial approaching, new revolutionary members storm the German Embassy in Stockholm to try to prove a point, that this war is not over. However, with the operation being such a failure, Baader is very upset and when the trial begins he declares that he is incapable of standing trial, for he cannot cooperate with the government. With the continuous argument being about isolation, they finally allow Meinhoff to be in Ensslins cell, but it goes sour when Meinhoff realizes Ensslin is changing everything she is writing because she calls it depressing. While the remaining members meet on the rooftop of the prison, they exclaim that they must escape the prison or they will be killed by the government. The film then goes to February 1976, and things are really looking bad for the three inmates, especially Meinhoff, who has grown a separation between the rest of the group. She demands that in solitary confinement, the only way to show one has changed is betrayal, which the others agree she has done to the RAF. In effect, Meinhoff is found dead in her cell, which it is claimed she committed suicide. With the RAF trial getting lots of hype in the media, Germany decides to transfer another main RAF member to the same prison as Ensslin and Baader, and fortunately for her, she gets to walk within 7 months of being there; she immediately goes back to the underground. The plan is to get Baader and Ensslin out of prison, or else they will end up dead like the others. Immediately, numerous people are killed for the blaming of the members being murdered in prison. They send out a secret code to the current RAF members that they have little time left, for they believe they will be killed shortly. In effect, they plan a huge massacre in order to kidnap an important government official so they have a hostage. The police decide to take away all communication from the prisoners and gets rid of all their electricity, so they do not know whats going on. The two members of the RAF go down to Iraq and get a plane hijacking together, saying they must let them out of prison. We are then informed that with times changing, terrorism has become profitable for many countries and that someone from the outside is going to come kill them. The next morning, all of the RAF members in the prison are found dead. The film ends with the new generation RAF members taking the kidnapped man into the forest and killing him.
    

The Baader Meinhof Complex


            Martha is the head chef of a restaurant run by her friend Frida.Martha's sister and niece are on the way to visit Martha when an accident occurs killing the sister, leaving her daughter Lina unhurt.Because Lina has never known her father, Martha assumes responsibility for her, at least until Lina's father can be found and contacted.Lina proves to be a real handful, partly because of grief, but more because the accident wouldn't have happened had they not been on the way to visit Martha.As the result of Martha needing to spend increasing amounts of time coping with Lina's behaviour, her work starts to suffer, so another chef, Mario, is hired to ease her load. The problem is that Mario is highly skilled and appears to Martha to be edging her out, setting up an opportunity for rivalry to erupt.The film develops from this point, focussing on the attempts to locate Lina's father and the affect that Mario has on all around him.The new Catherine Zeta-Jones film "No Reservations" is a remake of this award winning film.
    

Mostly Martha

Oktoberfest: Beer & Blood


            Bern, Switzerland. While walking over a bridge on his way to a local university, Raimund Gregorius (Jeremy Irons), a Swiss professor of ancient languages, notices a young woman in a red coat standing on the railing, about to jump. Dropping his briefcase, he runs and pulls her down. She helps him gather the papers that have spilled from his briefcase and accompanies him to the school where he teaches. But instead of waiting to talk, she leaves during the middle of his class, without her coat.Concerned, Raimund grabs the coat and runs after her, but fails to find her. He checks her pockets for identification. All he finds is a small book, a memoir of sorts, by Amadeu do Prado. It is stamped with the address of the bookstore, so he goes there. The bookseller remembers the girl purchasing this obscure book. As he leafs through it, a train ticket to Lisbon, Portugal falls out. The train is, in fact, leaving in 15 minutes. Confused and doubtful, Raimund rushes to the station, but the woman is nowhere in sight. At the last moment he decides to use the ticket himself, and during the journey he reads the book.According to the book, Amadeu do Prado lived in Lisbon, so Raimund searches for him, hoping that this will lead to the woman. He finds Amadeu's home, where he is welcomed in by the writer's sister Adriana (Charlotte Rampling). She gives the impression he still lives there. Raimund learns that Amadeu is a doctor, and that only 100 copies of the book were printed. When Raimund asks what happened to their father, Adriana's reaction is hostile. As he is leaving, the maid informs him that he can find Amadeu in the town's cemetery. He finds the tomb: Amadeu died in 1974.On the street, Raimund is hit by a bicyclist and smashes his glasses. While obtaining new glasses from a local optician, Mariana (Martina Gedeck), he narrates his experiences. When he collects the glasses, she tells him in fact that her uncle knew Amadeu do Prado well and would like to talk to Raimund.Raimund and his lovely new-found friend Mariana both go to the nursing home where her uncle João Eça resides (Tom Courtenay). João explains that he and Amadeu were both in the resistance against the Salazar dictatorship, a story told in continuing flashbacks as the film continues.Raimund then visits the priest Father Bartolomeu (Christopher Lee) who taught and also buried Amadeu do Prado. In another long flashback, the priest explains that Amadeu, a smart young boy from an aristocratic background, befriended Jorge O'Kelly (August Diehl), another bright boy in the school though of lowly means. They bonded through their love for knowledge, particularly the philosophical and political knowledge not permitted under Salazar. Amadeu gave a graduation speech that reflected his contempt for the regime, much to the chagrin of his father, a well respected judge.Raimund returns to Adriana and asks for her side of the story, and then visits João again for more information. He learns that Amadeu died of an aneurysm, which he knew he had, but had not told her about. As a doctor, Amadeu never refused a patient, and when a powerful member of the Salazar regime Rui Luís Mendes, called "the Butcher of Lisbon", was brought to Amadeu's clinic, he saved the man's life. Amadeu's friends were shocked by this, especially Jorge, who at that time was already in the resistance.Later, Amadeu confronted Jorge and declared that he too would join the resistance. Jorge introduced him to João and to Estefânia (Mélanie Laurent), a beautiful woman who helped the resistance by memorizing people's names and contact information, and who they were both attracted to. When the revolution against Salazar began, Amadeu was able to smuggle Estefânia to safety in Spain. Raimund learns where she went and goes there to see that she is still alive. The older Estefania (Lena Olin) tells Raimund about her romance with Amadeu before her fleeing into exile.Raimund finally meets the woman from the bridge again, in Lisbon; she had felt suicidal because she had just learned from the book that her beloved grandfather was the Butcher of Lisbon, but is learning to accept this.The events become a catalyst to Raimund's life, in a gentle sort of way. He informs the school that he is now returning to his job. In the final scene, Mariana goes to the railway station with him and, at the last moment, suggests he could instead stay.
    

Martina Gedeck

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