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The Lives of Others, winner of 2007 Oscar for Best Foreign Film category and Satyajit Ray award for year 2006 and the Bafta Award in 2008, is a stunning film that leaves you enthralled. It surprises you even more when you learn that it is the debut movie of director Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck. He created this movie as a part of his curriculum when he studied filmmaking in Munich.

The movie is based on the amazing mental focus that music gives and the amazing ideas that occur to such a focussed mind. Music gives an altered state of mind where one is more receptive and introspective. It gives feelings that are inexplicable.

The idea of music changing the minds of listeners may seem unlikely when you read it but when you experience it, you realize the hypnotic potential of music. Every piece of music generates its own feelings. Some transfer aggression and provide physical strength, for example, ‘O Fortuna’ from Carl Orff’s ‘Carmina Burana’, which can raise plunging spirits. Others can reduce you to tears, for example, Beethoven’s Sonata, which is the pivot in this movie.

The movie’s plot came to the maker in a similar moment of serendipity while hearing the self-same Sonata. Talking about how the film was conceived, the director said the idea occurred to him in 1997 in a creative class at film school. He always found music to be very conducive for new ideas; while listening to a sonata by Beethoven and thinking of a Lenin quote (Lenin told Gorsky he couldn’t listen to Appasionata and didn’t want to as he’d be unable to smash heads to finish the revolution) the story took root in his head. The director has also used this sequence in the film. The film also praises an artist’s love for freedom of speech and abstractness, and how the artistic spirit can shrivel and die in an authoritarian regime led by narrow-minded despots.

The story takes place in 1984, in German Democratic Republic (East Germany), five years before Stassi government’s downfall in East Germany, a period when DDR (East German Government) believed in ruling the country through a system of control and surveillance. Five years before its downfall, the former East German government ensured its claim to power with a ruthless system of control and surveillance. The government is particularly worried about artists and playwrights who agitated for freedom of speech.

One such artist the government is worried about is playwright Georg Dreyman. So they decide to follow this artist and his girlfriend Christa, celebrated theatre actress Christa-Maria Sieland. They assign a stern agent, Gerd Wiesler, an ardent believer in the Stassi system, whose only aim in life is to reach the pinnacle of his military career. But this immersion in The Lives of Others – in love, literature, free thinking and speech – has an effect on Wiesler. It makes him acutely aware of the meagreness of his own existence and opens his mind to a completely new way of life. One day, in his stake-out operation, this effect culminates in his change of heart when he listens to Beethoven’s Sonata coupled with Georg and Christa’s conversation. What ensues is a beautiful portrayal of suspense and drama.

The actors are in harmony with the director and it shows in their acting. The movie revolves around the four central characters and they have all performed perfectly. Cinematography is excellent. Florian Henckel has paid great attention to details, particularly in giving the movie the feel and authenticity of the Stassi era. Since the movie is so much based on music, he ensured that an eminent music director from outside Germany compose the music so that it would be something new to Germans. Gabriel Yared, of The Talented Mr. Ripley fame, has composed the brilliant music for this movie.

This post was submitted by Shehaana.