Back after a long hiatus.. actually it is this movie that moved me to write..I do not want to forget it's layered, explorative, richness..the questions it raised in my mind and the answers it provided to queries I did not know existed there. Its take on 'the burden of free will' in an oppressed environment..and it's dominoe effect on lives.
The movie is by writer and director Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck. The film involves the monitoring of the cultural scene of East Berlin by agents of the Stasi, the GDR's secret police. It stars Ulrich Mühe as Stasi Captain Gerd Wiesler, Ulrich Tukur as his chief Anton Grubitz, Sebastian Koch as the playwright Georg Dreyman, and Martina Gedeck as Dreyman's lover, a prominent actress named Christa-Maria Sieland.
That is the context. Now for it's resonance.What moved me the most is the movie's ability to communicate deeply with what is being unsaid. By choosing not to act or react in a given circumstance, each of the characters reveal the emotions, that define them and their lives.
For Captain Gerd Wiesler - his black and white world slowly moves to the grey and for a very brief period dabbles in a riot of colours. He grapples with this new burst of light in his otherwise colourless soul but slowly and surely moves to nourish it. Alas, his sincere attempt at a symphony between beauty and his conscience ends in a tragic requiem.
Does he love Christa-Maria or is he, as he frequently positions himself before her - simply her adoring audience? How does he reconcile his perception of beauty and dignity in her- with her penultimate 'betrayal'..the ultimate one being her death?
Sad but true for so many is the fate of Christa-Maria.. a thing of beauty, grace and love - that is lusted after and destroyed by the unscrupulous - worshipped and protected by the others - albeit with the subject itself almost never in a position to appreciate or take courage from it. Be it democracy, dignity, commitment or valour - the above seems applicable in reality.
Dreyman's final tribute to his secret spy - ' Sonata for a Good Man' - honours Wiesler's attempt to find his conscience knowing fully well that the consequences will be dire. But, what we are left wondering is this - where a rat like Hempf assimilates and metamorphises in a unified Germany, where a reluctant convert like Dreyman can rise again like a pheonix,where a mere audience like Wiesler is ultimately so personally honoured - why isn't there a place for Maria - the one all the above three once coveted though each for a different reason?
Was her crime beauty,love,ambition or just her conscience that wasnt as elective as it was for the others?
Finding an answer to the above, will I think , for me - crack the puzzle of life.
My rating : 8/10
