The Sonata of Good Men

I'm writing this while carefully holding back my tears.

While the full interest in German history rests on the dark side of the Holocaust, I have, in few instances, come across in my studies of Economics the infamous hyperinflation of the German currency when the borders that divide the East from the West finally toppled down. My take on this political event had been purely academic until I watched the film The Lives of Others.

I do not have the faculty to at least write a simple summary of this brilliant film for the simple reason that it was so complex I may not give justice to its genius. However, I would like to try with a simple digest so I can, at the very least, pay tribute to it. The movie follows the investigation of a group of artists--playwrights, poets, actors--in socialist East Germany. As expected, socialist rule prohibits free speech among intellectuals trying to question and threaten the revered rule. And while utmost secrecy is required among the rebel artists, the authorities can only employ the highest and most cunning shenanigans to infiltrate any form of revolution in incubation.

Georg Dreyman is an esteemed playwright who, badly devastated by the suicide of a great director friend who was banned by the Stasis from pursuing his career, committed to write an article exposing suicide incidents unaccounted for in the East. To get this printed in the West, a highly exclusive network had to get it past the borders. What seemed to be an unmonitored rebellious exercise was, unknown to Dreyman's group, fully monitored by Wiesler who bugged Dreyman's apartment. However, a stream of domestic drama and humanistic bouts with reality provoked Wiesler to flirt with his own share of existentialism that would soon turn the entire investigation into a complete symbol of the monumental triumph of the ever truthful human conscience.

It was with great expectations that I watched this film. Afterall, it won the Academy's Best Foreign Language Film for Germany in 2007. To have tears welling up in the corners of my eyes towards the movie's ending made me realize that self-worth may be discovered at a cost of a great sacrifice, but it was, all the while, worth it as soon as you find out that the highest form of gratitude has been accorded to it.

Germans can be as stoic and hard as their language, but this movie is full of heart intelligently presented amidst the seemingly evil German air, unfortunate relic of what might have been an unfair Hitler legacy.