SDR: East Germany's Oppressive Regime in 3 Movies - Essay Sample

Introduction

Both the three movies used SDR was the plot of their storyline. They both have a common story about the state of SDR since the link there tells from history that happened to SDR after the First World War. Both address the excess rule that the government of German was using towards its citizen. The Lives of Others film plot hearts on the GDR regime, a dominant force in the lives of East Germany's citizens through a structure of detectives and harsh security measures. With the aid of the Stasi secret police, the regime controls the country for likely disloyalty. Bernstei (2007) claims Dreyman, a suspect of subversion, is captured while tortured to obtain information from him. The film, at this point, uses dim light to capture this scene. The dim light is used to deepen the intensity of evilness of the regime

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According to Kapczynski (2007), in Good Bye, Lenin! In respect to the evilness pointed in The Lives of Others, tells of the desire of East German Citizens to return to their prior way of life before the regime turned into a dictatorship. Some of the things they are yearning for their economic stability, privacy, and equality.

Besides, The Traces of Stones point out the propaganda of the GDR government. In this film, the government considers itself as progressing society, yet its involvement in organizing thugs rioting and employing the event as a way of justifying to ban the film in the GDR (Feinstein, 2002). Nonetheless, in the Good Bye Lenin! Some citizens never experienced the harshness of the SDR government; instead, they enjoyed it. For instance, Wolfgang and Lichtenberg. To precisely give the audience a clear picture of the evilness of SDR, it goes to dream up mode to show kind of life Alex would have loved to be brought in.

The theme of Desire and Dreams

In The Lives of Others, Wings of Desire, and Good, bye Lenin! Share a common theme- the theme of desire.

In the Goodbye Lenin, the theme of desire emerges when film capture’s Alex’s flashbacks while he was a teen demonstrating his desperation to make the world okay for her mother and make her proud of him. He dreams of becoming the second man to visit space in East Germany. To attain his dreams, he joins the Young Rocket Builders( Kapczynski, 2007). Moreover, her childhood dreams go with him into his adulthood stage as he struggles to perfect his mother’s world. While Caldwell and Rea, P. W. (1991) argue that in The Wings of desires, the theme of hope is the main subject and its angle protagonist Daniel’s desires to separate himself from immorality to be human for the sake of love.

In the Lives of Others, Captain Wiesler can be viewed to have a secret admiration towards the life of Dreyman and Sieland. He progressives get absorbed with their laughter and dreams, fears, and passion. This admiration makes him get lost into their love until he achieves spiritual changes and resulted in him seeing the evil of the regime and turn to become disloyal to it.

The lesson learned from the theme is that humans with no desire will deprive, deny, persecute, ignore, and eliminate whatever is different from him. However, a man with desires can go anything to make his/ her will come true.

My Favorite Film

My favorite film was The Lives of Others film, at a first look, The Lives of Others is like the other two movies Trace of Stones (1966), and Good Bye, Lenin! (2003) since they were both used, the German Democratic Republic (GDR) has their setting. Besides, the storyline rotates on Germany's narratives before the fall of the Berlin Wall- a period GDR kept harsh regulations for its citizens. Nonetheless, The lives of Others film distinguishes itself from the rest of the movie by improving the familiar storyline and making human transformation its central theme, rather than the history of political occurrence.

The Lives of Others is a ‘must-see 'film. The two elements of this film that make it superior to other films are: the film is a remarkable example of how cinema narrates a story using visual techniques as much as the script. And. The film leads to an exceedingly important question for history in our cybernetic era, a period when the influence and reach of filmmakers far extend that of the historians.

High quality requires of its spectator, and the best film causes a huge emotional toll. For instance, affect how a restful audience sits through them. The Live of Others produces sensitive feelings through the utilization of a severe and remorseless anti-aesthetic. Most of the plot's walls are pale green; the lighting is almost always dim, the sun never shines, clothing is plain, and bright colors do not exist in the film. Further, most of the scenes in The Lives of Others occur at night ( Bernstein, 2007). The color in the movie does a notable role in upholding the tone and enlightening the closely watched lives of those who lived in GDR under the strict supervision of the state police force, the Stasi. Therefore, the film leads to a question: Why do images (movies like The Lives of Others) bother people as they do?

When Dreyman pleads Sieland not to go to another association with the Culture Minister, she does not silence him, claiming that both are in bed with the system (Bernstein, 2007). Wiesler eavesdrops in plain the conversation and develops empathy.

The Lives of Others are concerns about how human emotional interaction with the wide-screen is so intensely impacted by the color palette selected. The film leaves the audience, questioning what it tells them about history in our time of image saturation.

References

Bernstein, M. H. (2007). The Lives of Others: Matthew H. Bernstein on an Emotive Surveillance Thriller Set in Communist East Germany. Film Quarterly, 61(1), 30-36.

Caldwell, D., & Rea, P. W. (1991). Handke's and Wenders' Wings of Desire: Transcending Postmodernism. German Quarterly, 46-54.

Kapczynski, J. M. (2007). Negotiating Nostalgia: The GDR Past in Berlin Is in Germany and Good Bye, Lenin! The Germanic Review: Literature, Culture, Theory, 82(1), 78-100.