Saw The Lives of Others (Das Leben der Anderen) the other day. Not everyone liked it as much as the academy did, it seems:

Hollywood makes this kind off movie, too, only instead of Art, we have Heart. Our Good Stasi and playwright rolled into one is a boxer named Rocky, a private named Ryan, a runt named Rudy, and even a German, Schindler and his list. If anything, Hollywood’s sentimental escapism is better than that of The Lives of Other People; most of us are mature enough to recognize that Rocky is a fantasy. And not even Rocky was as heavy-handed as the director of Other People’s Lives so unsure that we’ll get the message of the music that he tells us the song is called “Sonata for a Good Man.” (Jeff Sharlet)

This is fair. Most of the characters in the film are either soulless members of the socialist party or noble defenders of art, which in itself is used as a thinly veiled stand in for truth and beauty, whatever that means. The “moral ambiguity” that so many critics rave about in this movie is confined to the main character, Wiesler, an officer of the Stasi state police, and to Christa-Maria, the wife of the artist whom Wiesler is sent to spy on. The artist’s name is Dreyman, and he is almost as one-dimensional a caricature as the remaining characters in the movie. This is thankful because otherwise my ethical processing powers would have been overloaded by the sheer volume of gut-wrenching dilemmas that would have had to unfold. Long story short, Wiesler starts questioning the dehumanizing effects of his actions, and this elicits viewer sympathy. What causes his change of heart? Art. Love. Music. Everything that is good in the universe.

It works. If you’re expecting subtlety from a movie whose Hollywood-style trailer explicitly identifies it to grapple with intense moral issues in a totalitarian regime, then you’re looking in the wrong place. The Oscars aren’t given to movies for being realistic or thought-provoking, they go to movies for creating feel-good drama in the Hollywood tradition. And drama this movie does provide. There was so much tension and emotion in the story that my head was still throbbing when I got out of the theater. To be sure, I was left wishing I had the sort of spiritual experience that “Sonata for a good man” gave the main character. But wait, I do. It’s called “iTunes,” and each experience is numbered for easy access, such as “Mozart piano concerto no. 21.” I promptly went home and started listening, waiting for a Christa-Maria to pop into my life and reward my sensitive nature. Nope. Evidently, being a good person isn’t like being the artist Dreyman, whose post-Berlin-wall affluence and respect attains proportions only matched by those of his well-proportioned wife. (Alas, her non-physical traits, as we are sledge-hammered to note at the end of the movie, remain deeply flawed.) Nay, being a good human is more like being Wiesler — his vindication of the unconquerable human spirit really wins him a fat paycheck in the end. Sarcasm? Only one way for you to find out!

I guess what I’m really saying is that The Lives of Others moved me not in spite of its idealism, but because of it. In the fantasy world created by a few well-paid delusionaries (directors, you might call them?) in our society, we get to live by rules that let our consciences win every time. Every movie that the reviewer above seems to scorn — Saving Private Ryan, Schindler’s List — is on my list of all-time favorites. I’ll even add to that list some fine specimens of Western guilt: Three Kings, Hotel Rwanda, Syriana. It’s pretty damn hard to be a good person in real life already. The beauty of Hollywood is that it lets us feel like good people for a couple hours when we really need it.

This is not my cynicism talking — it’s more an attempt to get to the bottom of the curious postmodern fact that sometimes emotions seem more real during a movie than in everyday life. Even now I’m still haunted by one scene: Wiesler, in one of his first uncharacteristic moves as the eavesdropping Stasi agent, buzzes Dreyman’s door remotely, just as Christa is coming home in the car of another man. Dreyman comes down to the door before Christa knows he’s watching, and sees just enough to guess the rest. The exchange between the two lovers that ensues is completely unexpected and at the same time makes perfect sense. It was enough for me to envy the artist Dreyman, who does not even exist. It is also enough for you to go watch the scene for yourself.