The transition from communism to freedom has been disappointing in many ways. Markets didn’t grow overnight leading to instant prosperity for everyone. Thugs used government to gain privileges and so on.
But dislike of communism was always about more than just material well-being. The Lives of Others captures the essence of freedom and opression in an extraordinary movie. It’s about much more than that—it’s about art and love and the human heart and whether or not we can transform ourselves.
My other thought on watching the director discuss it afterward on the DVD is that he’s an unbelievably talented man. This is his first film. It took him five years to research it, write it and film it. And I wondered what a man of his talent would have done 100 years ago. Probably a playwright. Maybe a novelist. Maybe a painter. But making a movie uses a vaster palette of visual and verbal skills than any one of those. Along with some other types of skills, too. What a world we live in that gives a talent like this such scope for his vision.
I hope I haven’t ruined it for you by making it sound like a cross between Don Quixote, Hamlet and the Gates of Hell. You’re almost certain to be disappointed. So let me make it clear—it’s not the greatest film of all time. There are some contrived moments. But the acting and the language and cinematography and the themes make up for the flaws. It is worth renting. Watch it.
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Satire
But if we don't watch everyone, who knows what might happen?
This was my favorite film of last year. Highly recommended! I especially like the last scene in the bookstore. Moviemaking at its finest and a voice for liberty.
"But making a movie uses a vaster palette of visual and verbal skills than any one of those. Along with some other types of skills, too."
All true, but that also means that the risk of failure is much greater, especially when you consider the sheer number of people involved in making a film. If anyone of them really drops the ball it can turn a great movie into a steaming pile of crap. A tricky business to be sure.
Ulrich Muhe played the Stasi officer in that wonderful film. He died of cancer very recently. Sight and Sound documents here: http://print.signandsight.com/features/1459.html
Muhe was spied upon by the Stasi for much of his life; his wife was a Stasi informant who also spied on him. Muhe helped organise the demonstrations at Alexanderplatz in 1989 which helped lead to the fall of the East German regime. If you liked the film, go read the Muhe story. The man's a hero.
The movie is not without flaws. Florian, the author-director, stacks the deck by making The Artist character implausibly virtuous and The Director character cartoonishly vile. It would make more sense to have a morally ambagious Artist character crushed on the wheel of High Purpose. Think Jean Valjean vs. Javert set in the German Democratic Republic.
Florian put a lot of historical research into his screenplay, and it shows. People ~really were~ told to put their hands under their thighs when they were interrogated so that the Stasi could keep a scent sample on file for the dogs. (The Stasi had a habit of breaking into people's houses and stealing underwear for the same reason). There ~really were~ over 100,000 Stasi officers assisted by 200,000 paid informants. (On a population adjusted basis, that would amount to almost 6 million people in a comparable American population. Nazi Germany, with over four times the population, got by with less than half the number of Stasi officers.) East Germany was among the best the Eastern Bloc had to offer, and it was pretty crappy.
The movie is very, very good — possibly even Great — and better than 95% of the other movies out there.
Is it unthinkable that someone could be implausibly virtuous (not hard to do by the devolved standards we have since the 60s) or that someone could be cartoonishly vile (have seen enough of those in my life).
I have tried so hard to tell people on another link I visit regularly that to have evil it is not necessary for to have evil people, plotting evil thoughts, and commiting evil deeds. All it takes is arbitrary power and stupidity.
Where do we find arbitrary power and stupidity in abundance? Governments, any government.
I haven't seen the movie yet, so my question is purely a question and not a desire to begin a protracted peeing contest.
It is great, the best I've seen in several years I'd say.
Suggested libertarian film festival: The Lives of Others, V for Vendetta, Serenity, The Lost City.
These are all pretty recent; is it a trend? Are there older libertarian-themed films that are of the same quality?
Any other suggestions? Maybe Brazil?
"I haven't seen the movie yet"
Make sure you make time and see it. Its flaws are not fatal, and the film is better than most of what is available.
By making The Artist virtuous and The Director vile, Florian leaves socialism open to the Revolution Betrayed defense (i.e., "Socialism is not to blame, Stalin is" for various values of Mao, Pot, Mengistu, Honecker, Ceausescu, Castro, Kim, Kim, and so on and so forth). "If we just had the right kind of people!"
The film is strong, but it could be stronger.
One of my favorite lines from the film is when, after the fall of the Wall, The Minister says, "Only now do we realize what a great thing we had." You could almost hear the open-handed slap in the face of that nauseating neo-Honeckerist nostalgia film "Goodbye Lenin" (Which is actually an effective anti-socialist film. Even with a positive spin seen through rose-tinted glasses, socialism still smells like crap.)
V for Vendetta is not a libertarian movie.
In the graphic novel, Norsefire comes to power by popular acclaim. In the parallel universe created by the author, Thatcher's Tories loose to a Labour government that preserves the United Kingdom through nuclear disarmament from the fallout of a Cold War gone hot . In the resulting instability, Norsefire comes to power by popular acclaim. (Note well, that this prediction got the end of the Cold War backwards and upside-down).
In the movie, Norsefire comes to power through a corporate conspiracy (read Big Phara). This critically changes the nature of the regime and the lessons we are to learn from the film (reject media manipulation). It also misrepresents the historical trajectory of rise of fascism in Weimar Germany in a way that the graphic novel does not (Hitler was democratically elected.)
Since the movie itself is a media manipulation of a media manipulation, taking the film seriously would mean rejecting the film.
It is too bad the movie is R-rated. We need more films that put communism in its proper light, not as some theory abused by it's practitioners, but a horror that destroys liberty and kills people. Young children need to know that.
May I recommend Night Crossing? It is a film by Disney, but it is very good, not sappy or silly and the tension is real. It is based on a true story about two families escaping from East Berlin and communism to West Berlin and freedom.
It is a narrative that school age children, from K-college, will not hear often if at all.
A good anti-socialist libertarian film for kids is "Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow". A private army takes on Dr. Evil and his evil do-gooders.
Cool graphics.
"It is too bad the movie is R-rated. We need more films that put communism in its proper light, not as some theory abused by it's practitioners, but a horror that destroys liberty and kills people. Young children need to know that."
While watching yet another Holocaust movie, I'm still waiting for the movie version of Solzhenitsyn's "A Day In the Life of Ivan Denisovitch".
A movie version of Slavomir Rawicz's historically dubious but dramatically compelling "The Long Walk" would also be worth watching.
http://www.amazon.com/Long-Walk-True-Story-Freedom/dp/1558216847
http://answers.google.com/answers/threadview?id=303344
Khang Chol-Hwan's "Aquariums of Pyongyang: Ten Years in a North Korean Gulag" would make a great movie — told from the eyes of a child.
http://www.amazon.com/Aquariums-Pyongyang-Years-North-Korean/dp/0465011020
Chanrithy Him's "When Broken Glass Floats:Growing Up Under the Khmer Rouge" would make a great movie — once again told from the eyes of a child.
http://www.amazon.com/When-Broken-Glass-Floats-Growing/dp/0393322106
Loung Ung's "First They Killed My Father" would make a great movie — here again told from the eyes of a child.
http://www.amazon.com/First-They-Killed-Father-Remembers/dp/0060856262
Pin Yathay's "Stay Alive, My Son" would make a great movie.
http://www.amazon.com/Stay-Alive-Son-Pin-Yathay/dp/0671663941
When I was still in knee britches, I got a kick out of watching "Doctor Zhivago"– still a great movie.
"I wondered what a man of his talent would have done 100 years ago. Probably a playwright. Maybe a novelist."
No … probably a farmer. Possibly uneducated and illiterate. Likely as not eaten by a bear in childhood!
It would be hard to improve on The Inner Circle. Which contains the single most chilling exchange I've ever heard:
For a second, I thought the link to "Gates of Hell" would be Lucio Fulci's classic 1982 horror film City of the Living Dead.
Oh well.
Many in the group have been involved for decades, he said, and in many cases, the group is a really family affair, with children acting or helping with the sets and mom and dad working with costumes, sets or just whatever needs to be done. The youngest cast disney acting auditions member of “Jungle Book,” 6-year-old Mary Foster, who plays the sixth and last coil on the snake Kaa’s tail, describes the whole experience very succinctly.