Truth be told, I am bedazzled/repelled by all things German. The oxymoronic title, The Good German, had me twitching. I was not alone. At a private screening in December the response among the attending moviemakers and stars was mixed. Director Steven Soderburgh, himself ambivalent, introduced his latest as an “experiment.” When asked, what were you doing in this film, George Clooney said simply, “I was the girl.” The “girl” of course was Cate Blanchett and the Holocaust era movie with its Casablanca spin received no awards. Nevertheless, I was enraptured.
One of my picks for Best Foreign Film, however, is from Germany: The Lives of Others (opening February 9). While the Holocaust has provided a fair number of excellent features (look out for the coming Black Book), the period after remains to be mined. Riveting throughout, the film’s story involves artists, a playwright-actress couple in East Berlin, when writers especially but all creative people were watched scrupulously by the notorious Stasi, the official security arm of the Communist government. It is shocking how far a regime can think itself entitled to invade the privacy of individuals, developing a system of spying only the curious brew of Soviet and post Nazi paranoia could produce. You need to see the documentary at Film Forum (7-13 February), The Decomposition of the Soul, written and directed by Nina Toussaint and Massimo Iannetta, to get the real picture of what that Kafkaesque life was like for ordinary citizens. The fictive The Lives of Others gets it right: Years of extensive research went into every period detail: the gloomy colorlessness, the stark furnishings, the joyless sensibility. Oscar-winning Gabriel Yared composed the bittersweet score for this love story set in this repressive historic moment, as forces begin to encroach on the lovers (Martina Gedeck and Sebastian Koch) in the form of a Stasi operative, Ulrich Muhe in a chilling, outstanding portrayal that begs the question: what does it mean to be human?
In a recent interview the director, writer Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck talked about his inspiration and the numerous awards, including his country’s Lolas, the film has so far garnered. What impressed him as a child was seeing fear in grown-ups as his family crossed the divide between West and East Germany to visit relatives. Once as he waited in the car at a checkpoint, his mother was held for hours, strip searched and humiliated. Deftly, the film recreates this terror of personal violation.
I asked about Sebastian Koch, starring in his film and also in Black Book (he plays a “good” German) is he as much a heartthrob in Europe as he is among women here in the know. [Okay, I have a crush.] “He is best known as a television actor in Germany. What people don’t realize is, as he is handsome, he is even better as an actor. He can play anything.”
When asked about the Oscars, Florian said, “Of course I want to beat Guillermo [del Toro, the director of Pan’s Labyrinth, the favorite to win]. But then I met him. If I have to lose to him I won’t mind. He is such a great guy.”
I am sure Guillermo is saying the same about Florian.
A note: The period is limned in a new biography of Leni Riefenstahl from Germany that wants to redeem her legacy: Leni Riefenstahl: A Life by Jurgen Trimborn (Faber & Faber). And, the latest novel by Martin Amis, House of Meetings (Alfred A. Knopf), looks back at that post-war period in an astonishingly powerful evocation of life under a totalitarian regime. Two brothers in love with the same woman are imprisoned in a slave labor camp in the gulag of Soviet Russia. Well, it doesn’t have to be German . . . .
The Good German , Steven Soderburgh, The Lives of Others , Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck, Black Book , Sebastian Koch
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