Thursday Movie Picks - German Language Films

The Lives of Others

Directed by Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck.

2006. Rated R, 137 minutes.

Cast:

Ulrich Muhe

Sebastian Koch

Martina Gedeck

Ulrich Tukur

Thomas Thieme

Hans-Uwe Bauer

Volkmar Kleinert

Matthias Brenner

In 1984, East Germany is still fiercely ruled by the German Democratic Republic, The GDR, and is a strictly socialist nation. The ruling party expends lots of resources spying on citizens they suspect of working against their interests. Many are jailed while many others are coerced into becoming informants. Not surprisingly, many of the people they are keeping tabs on are heavily involved with the arts. After all, creative endeavors require the freest thinkers. We're told every writer in the country is under surveillance except one, Georg Dreyman (Koch). He is the only one whose work is not considered subversive. That all changes after some higher-ups take in a performance of his latest play. The decision is made to bug his apartment and see exactly what he's up to. This is where Cpt. Wiesler (Muhe) comes in. He heads up the operation and soon finds out there is a lot more going on than making sure Georg is being a good socialist.

Wiesler is a fascinating character. On the surface, he's all about strict adherence to the party and its protocols. Beneath that, we can see where he's lacking and how this affects him. Over the course of the movie, our task becomes deciding whether we're watching him unravel or merely get in touch with his own humanity. Maybe he's doing both. Ulrich Muhe displays this through a wonderfully understated performance. Without the showy moments of some of his co-stars, he conveys everything necessary for us to understand his character.

Muhe is far from alone in his effectiveness. Martina Gedeck is thoroughly conflicted as Crista, Georg's girlfriend who finds herself in a tricky situation. As Georg himself, Sebastian Koch is perfectly confused by all that's going on around him while trying to maintain several facades of his own. Thomas Thieme and Ulrich Tukur play Minister of Culture Hempf and Lt. (?) Grubitz, respectively. They give us the villain and his top henchman. Both are intimidating, made more so by the conviction of their beliefs. The movie itself doesn't share them, but is smart enough to show that these men truly feel they are doing what is necessary to maintain the order of things as they feel it should be.

The Lives of Others, or Das Leben der Anderen in its native German, may lose some viewers along the way. This is because this film is a slow burn and not a spontaneous combustion. It seems to meander where it is really establishing the various dynamics at play. It can appear random where it is actually giving us important information about the behavior of the characters. Most of all, it comes across as just a political thriller. Bubbling just beneath the surface, however, is a very human tale. Sure, it makes a somewhat obvious social comment by the time it ends. What's more important than that is that it studies the people involved and their understanding of the world.

M

Directed by Fritz Lang.
1931. Not Rated, 117 minutes. German.
Cast:
Peter Lorre
Otto Wernicke
Frau Beckmann
Inge Landgut
Theodor Loos
Rudolf Blümner
Georg John
Ernst Stahl-Nachbaur

A child murderer has been terrorizing the town for quite some time. Everyone is on edge. The police are working day and night on seemingly never-ending shifts to find the killer. Still, children keep disappearing. Honest citizens become suspicious of one another. Dishonest citizens are upset that added attention from the law is hurting their businesses. Our killer taunts the authorities with letters to them and to the press. Yet, he remains undetected.

What follows are multiple and exhausting investigations that come to run simultaneously. We see the police using every available tool to apprehend the murderer and try explaining themselves to an impatient public when they don’t. Criminals have meetings to decide how they will deal with the situation. The task of catching the guilty party saturates every second of every day.

From time to time, we get to see this monster for ourselves. Though those around him know nothing, his identity is no mystery to us. We get to know what triggers his most heinous actions and how he operates. Before it’s all over, we hear his explanation. It’s a plea for sympathy. However, he is not only pleading with those in the movie. He’s also pleading with those watching.

That the killer is caught is not a spoiler. Indeed, it eventually becomes a mere matter of time before he is. The real question becomes who will catch him and what will they do with him. In most films, his capture would serve as our climax. Here, it is the axis that turns our tale. This is what makes M special. Even now, 80 years since its release, it refuses to be strait-jacketed into cliché. It still has the strength to go beyond the point where most pictures quit. Those movies are content to leave us with the tidy, happy ending. M is not. It has questions to ask you. It wants to know what you believe in.

The White Ribbon

Directed by Michael Haneke.
2009. Rated R, 144 minutes, German.
Cast:
Christian Friedel
Ernst Jacobi
Leonie Benesch
Ulrich Tukur
Ursina Lardi
Fion Mutert
Michael Kranz
Burghart Klaussner
Maria-Victoria Dragus
Leonard Proxauf

The village doctor has a serious accident on his way home, one day. Someone used a very strong, thin and barely visible wire tied between two trees to trip the horse he was riding on. Yes, I said horse. Our movie begins about 1916, if my math is right. We’re not explicitly told. Anyhoo, the doc breaks his collarbone and is off to the nearest hospital and out of sight for roughly half the movie. This is first in a series of bizarre occurrences in the village. For most of these events, the culprit is unknown. Whodunit becomes the question that dominates the landscape.

Between the strange, heinous crimes, we get to know the villagers. The local school teacher serves as our narrator. In true early 20th century fashion, he’s courting a 17 year old girl with intentions to marry her. There is the rich baron who employs half the town. No one in town really likes him, but hey, he’s the boss. We have the poor family who lost their matriarch to a work accident. Since she worked for the baron, some of them blame him for her demise. The doctor’s next door neighbor takes care of his kids while he’s in the hospital. There’s more to her than that, but I don’t want to spoil it. The town reverend is a crusty Old Testament type who doles out punishment to his children in biblical proportions for their indiscretions.

Speaking of punishment, it is at the center of all things in TWR. There is always some act or another deemed worthy of penalty. Those penalties include lashings, mandatory ribbon wearing, being tied up every night and termination from employment, to name a few. The victims of the seemingly random crimes appear to be being punished, too. For what, isn’t always clear. As who is responsible comes into focus, it raises other questions.

When the end credits begin to roll, an entire way of life has been put on trial. Are the various methods of punishment effective or excessive? Are the misdeeds real or perceived? Is Christianity, or religion in general, too rigid? How does all this effect the children? There is much to discuss.

Aside from the questions it raises, the movie itselfe is an intriguing mystery. It is also packed with family drama revealing various levels of dysfunction within the families of the village. However, it is also slow. Most, if not all of the punishing takes place off-screen. We merely watch them talk about it, and they speak very calmly. Though the dialogue they deliver while almost never raising their voices is exceptionally written, I can see this being a difficult watch for many.

Metropolis

Metropolis
1927. Not Rated, 115 minutes.
Director: Fritz Lang. Starring Alfred Abel, Brigitte Helm, Gustav Frohlich, Rudolf Klein-Rogge.
Young, privileged Freder (Frohlich) accidentally discovers that the prosperous city he lives in, and his father Fredersen (Abel) runs, is kept running literally on the backs of the poor, nearly enslaved laborers who themselves live far below the city's surface. The movie proves one thing, man is perpetually cynical about the future, especailly in regards to technology. It gives us a marvelous dystopian society the powers that be are trying to pass of as an underground paradise while essentially keeping the working class in bondage. Fredersen makes a great villain, not because he's evil, though he is, but more because like the best bad guys he believes what he's doing is right and just and will do anything to perserve what he sees as the proper order of things. The concepts used here have aged remarkably well as many of them are still recycled in sci-fi to this day. Even more surprising, the special fx look better than many movies half it's 80+ years. Of course since it's a silent movie, some people will automatically be turned off and that's a shame. However, since silent movies are such a different beast to tame for today's audience, I won't grade it. I'll just say if you're a serious sci-fi movie buff then you should see this, if for no other reason than making sure you see all the classics of the genre to see how far it has, and hasn't come.