lives of others

lives of others

-the very beginning was good. Showing an interrogation which we naturally want to say is inhuman and unjust but then to show that the subject was indeed lying (people who are telling the truth can speak the truth in many different ways where the liars memorize certain phrases and repeat them -- this is how it works for philosophy professors too!)

-the agent's perspective strangely mirrored the normal experience of watching TV/film and wanting to help the characters, this bred a familiarity with him which otherwise wouldn't have been there because they spent little time developing his character.Any average, unimportant person, could imagine themselves as a hero if they were put in his place.

-I felt a strange nostalgia for the intellectual types. Beards, glasses, greasy hair, and clothing fashion which wasn't so different from everyone else but seems to consist more of dressing in clothes which were popular in older times and therefore legitimate because they were popular but subversive because they go against current fashion.

-the way that the artist passed up meeting his benefactor (the agent) after the wall came down and chose to write a book was touching. It was beautiful for the artist to turn him into a novel rather than use him as a priest who he could confess his feelings and guilt to.

-I don't know why but I like the villians who are fat/unattractive guys who using their power (implying that they obtained their power) in order to get sex. It seems to be a strong tradition in Eastern European society and one which has much honesty.

-I liked how the flaws of the artists were up for discussion.I like the way that the agent talked to the actress and that she was on drugs and didn't have confidence. Also, that the writer was "hysterical anthropocentrist" and needed to have people around and agreed that his friend was being too arrogant and deserved to have his travel visa to the West cancelled. In one way the movie seemed to want sympathy for the fact that artists had to bow down to the state in order to create but it never made them into great people.

-I also liked the scene where the agent was with his boss and a young official came in to tell a joke about the party leader. It really showed the feeling of what it is to live in socialism which really means to live under the caprice of individuals. Humour really must have walked a delicate line between allegiance to a state which consists of all too many lies and the necessary irony which any honest person must have towards this.


But all the things I liked didn't save the movie for me. The cinematography was dry, the characters were more symbols than people, and when I woke up today I only thought of the ideas in it and not the visuals. The central idea of the film takes place in the theatre after the wall comes down. Both the artist and the fat party official leave the play in order to get some respite from their feelings for the dead actress. The film-maker aligns himself with the fat official and says that we don't know what we lost in our little Republic -- even though we spent so much energy fighting the human spirit at least we considered it to be important.