This movie was recommended by a work colleague and did not disappoint. The movie is written and directed by Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck and commences in 1984 before the fall of the Berlin Wall. The movie focuses on writer/dramatist Georg Dreyman and his companion Christa-Maria Sieland (actress) who have a high profile and many contacts with those who are not necessary pleased with the current political regime.
A high ranking official becomes interested in Christa and sets the secret service into monitoring Georg to remove him from the picture.
The agent selected is Wiesler (pictured below) who is dedicated to his job of monitoring and extracting information, including teaching new recruits on the techniques they should utilise.
Early in the film we are given an examples of these techniques and the measures they use to extract the information.
Note form IMDb poster: The former East Germany, a relatively small country of 16 million people, was controlled by the most sophisticated, cunning, and thorough secret police the world has ever seen, the East German Ministerium für Staatsicherheit, or “Stasi.” The Stasi had about 90,000 employees — a staggering number for such a small population — but even more importantly, recruited a network of hundreds of thousands of “unofficial employees,” who submitted secret reports on their co-workers, bosses, friends, neighbors, and even family members. Some did so voluntarily, but many were bribed or blackmailed into collaboration.
So Dreyman’s house is given the full bug treatment along with a routine threat to a watching neighbour that if she mentions anything her daughter will no longer attend university. 24 hour monitoring commences with Weisler and a recruit taking 12 hour shifts, recording everything
Weisler discovers Dreynam is a good person with an interesting life and when black-booked writer and friend Paul Hauser commits suicide after giving up all hope of writing again, Dreyman starts playing The Sonata of a Good Man and Weisler is deeply touched by the music. From this point onwards Weisler doesn’t want to find anything however pressure is being applied from above and the monitoring must not fail.
The death of his friend and the discovery that Christa is being manipulated into sleeping with the high official causes Dreyman to question his moderate stance and he starts sending manuscripts typed on a smuggled typewriter (fonts are traceable) across the border which are published and draw more attention to who is writing them. New pressure is applied meanwhile Weisler is now fabricating his daily reports protecting them as best he can.
Things can’t hold out and when Christa finally has the courage to spurn the government official he wants her pulled down, she has been monitored taking illegal tablets, and when interrogated advised she will lose her acting status unless she can provide information on the smuggled articles. She loses her control and dobs in Dreyman but doesn’t give the location of the hidden typewriter, later when they have found nothing and Weisler is given the job of interrogation she provides the location however Weisler then manages to get to the location and remove it before it is discovered.
Weisler’s character is a little like the Berlin Wall itself, bit by bit his walls break down until he cannot stand the thought of Dreyman being found out.
Eventually the wall comes down and surveillance records are freely available, Dreyman finds out that he was monitored and discovers they have a mountain of surveillance records, it is when reading these that he discovers Weisler has his guardian angel, and dedicates a novel “Sonata to a good man” to agent HGW XX/7.
An overall amazing story with real atmosphere, it has a sense of danger, fear, and control that does not leave you.
Wayne’s rating 9.5 /10, please feel free to leave your comments below!
You must see this movie…soon!
