Synopsis source: IMDB.com. The 2006 film The Lives of Others (Das Leben der Anderen) is about you; it’s about all of us. Talk to you soon, I hope. Hello Deanna, I can appreciate what you say here. The film opens in East Berlin in 1984 with a sequence that alternates scenes from an interrogation with scenes from a training class for aspiring officers of the Stasi, or secret police. Well said ! Thus, Wiesler represents man without a feminine consciousness; man without a heart. The Lives of Others (Das Leben der Anderen) SYNOPSIS: "In 1984 East Berlin, an agent of the secret police, conducting surveillance on a writer and his lover, finds himself becoming increasingly absorbed by their lives." After all, he is a Stasi police agent monitoring for actions against a Police State. This blog is not meant to professionally treat people psychologically. Man hunts, gathers, acquires, usurps, and destroys if threatened. The once rigid Stasi officer begins to intervene in their lives, in a positive way, protecting them whenever possible. Indeed, you do not know yourself outside of the story that you create about your life. | For example, the masculine energy is the hunter and gatherer. This movie focuses on the life of a writer named Georg Dreyman as he is monitored by a Stasi officer named Hauptmann Wiesler in the German Democratic Republic in 1984. Summary. A farmer, Nitai Das, kills his children and wife and then himself, out of sheer desperation resulting from abject poverty and hunger. An Online Self-Help Resource: Learn To Live The Best Life Possible, Psychology in Every Day Life | A Publication By Dr. Deborah Khoshaba, The Lives of Others: Film Analysis by Dr. Deborah, Getting to Oz Receives Two 2016 Publishing Book Awards, New Years 2016: A Need to Belong to Each Other, Nightcrawler’s Antihero Lou Bloom: Sociopath Par Excellence, Birdman: An Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance. Gradually the intelligence officer becomes a silent accomplice . With much love to you–your former teacher and now Deborah! 1985, East Berlin: The Stasi (East German secret police) bugs the apartment of a famous writer. The film The Lives of Others takes place in 1984 East Germany, Stasi officer Hauptmann Gerd Wiesler is assigned to spy on playwright Georg Dreyman.Wiesler soon learns the real reason behind the surveillance: Minister of Culture Bruno Hempf covets Dreymans girlfriend, actress Christa-Maria Sieland, and is trying to eliminate his rival. Human beings have always used stories to share experience, to teach, and to humanize people. All content provided on this blog is for informational purposes only. Carl Jung’s theory of analytical psychology speaks to the psychological limitation of Wiesler, at the movie’s start. Plot Keywords More true for countries in south Asia.A wonderful analysis (and certainly a fascinating start) by Dr Deborah Khoshaba ! These terms and conditions of use are subject to change at anytime and without notice. The reference to two other films could include works on the topic of surveillance, such as The Conversation (Coppola, 1974), or Cold War thrillers (“spy films”). thank you Hanya. In Chinese, there is this saying, “There is always a difficult chapters for every family to read” (to have a skeleton in cupboard). The novel was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize and established Mukherjee’s international literary reputation. The Lives of Others (German: Das Leben der Anderen) is a 2006 German drama film, marking the feature film debut of filmmaker Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck.The plot is about the monitoring of East Berlin residents by agents of the Stasi, East Germany's secret police. No matter the story being shared, there is always something in it with which you can relate, if you dare to open yourself up to and explore its meanings. Wiesler did not know what a blessing was bestowed upon him, when he was put in charge of monitoring their activities. Cinematic smugness has a fatal impact on the delineation of Wiesler's quietly heroic political calisthenics and The Lives of Others' supposedly uplifting denouement. Feeling aligns us with, rather than against, each other. Every psychological theorist contends that balance is a requirement for healthy mental and physical functioning. Although this gorgeous film ends tragically, the lives of Wiesler, Dreyman and Sieland merge into a poetry about the human condition. The Lives of Others (2014) by Indian-English author Neel Mukherjee follows the eventual downfall of an upper-middle class family in late 1960s and early 1970s India. The film centers on the East German Ministry for State Security, which is a secret police known as the Stasi, created by the German Democratic Republic (GDR) in an attempt to maintain its power and protect the survival of Socialism in East Berlin. I can’t wait to see more postings of your film critiques. And, that you see my heart in what I do is the nicest complement of all. The Lives of Others is a story about transformation and learning how to do the right thing. Hello Nikko, I’m sorry for the delay in getting back to you. The Minister of Culture agrees but only later does Wiesler learn that the Minister sees Dreyman as a rival and lusts after his partner Christa-Maria. ENTER CITY, STATE OR ZIP CODE GO. A staunch party-line Stasi officer is put in charge of the electronic eavesdropping. He listens~~ to their dreams, their laughter, their fears, their passion and their lovemaking. It illuminates the corrupt system during the communist regime of the GDR. By the movie’s end, Wiesler becomes a whole, integrated being of feeling and reason. I enjoyed your interpretation more so than the film itself. Warmly Deborah. Summary: At once a political thriller and human drama, The Lives of Others begins in East Berlin in 1984, five years before Glasnost and the fall of the Berlin Wall and ultimately takes us to 1991, in what is now the reunited Germany. Hence, The Lives of Others is more about the persecution of human beings throughout time and a powerful message to us to get to know what we do not understand. Captain Wiesler finds himself increasingly absorbed by Dreyman and Sieland’s lives. Thus far, Dreyman has escaped all but cursory attention from the authorities due to his staunchly professed pro-Communist views and his internationally recognized talent. The Cold War is still raging and the communist bloc does not trust its own citizens. The Lives of Others, directed by Florian Henckel von Donnersmark, focuses on the cultural scene in East Berlin during the German Democratic Republic (GDR) in the middle of the 1980s. “The Lives of Others” captures human compassion at its most sophisticated level, as Georg Dreyman (Sebastian Koch), a famous East German writer, … Neel Mukherjee's 'The Lives of Others' has one of the most heartbreaking openings to a book, that completely underlines the vast difference between the haves and the have-nots, and the inevitability of a violent uprising against the injustice of it all. The Central Committee rules with an iron grip through the Ministry of State Security (Stasi) to stunt the bleeding of life to the West. This film also reveals the interdependence of physical and emotional journeys that characters often take. Thx Dr. Deborah. I always say–you see in me, what is already alive in you, or you could not be present to it. © 2021 Psychology in Every Day Life | A Publication By Dr. Deborah Khoshaba. Hope to see you again soon. This is the first of many film analyses that I will post on Psychology in Everyday Life. Yes, the issues highlighted in this movie are reality. Warm regards Deborah. I also perceives that being invisible often give us to compare and contrast others lives without the burden of our embarrassment, desires and shyness. The film’s cultural features are a powerful backdrop to showcase the need for humankind to understand, respect, and value each other. I lived in the Soviet Russia, and in reality, people like Wiesler were so profoundly injured as human beings that it was unlikely for such transformation to actually take place, in my opinion. Over time, rather than being coldly distant, he finds himself being absorbed by their private lives. 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