Credits

subject, screenplay and direction:

Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck

produced by:

Wiedemann & Berg Filmproduktion

distributed by:

01

Italian dialogues:

Rodolfo Cappellini

Dubbing direction:

Alida Milana

Dubbing assistant:

Laura Masini

Dubbing sound technician:

Marco Meloni

Sound mixer technician:

Fabio Tosti

Editing society:

Dea 5

Sound:

Sefit CDC

Voices:

Ulrich Mühe:

Angelo Maggi

Ulrich Tukur:

Danilo De Girolamo

Sebastian Koch:

Francesco Prando

Martina Gedeck:

Laura Boccanera

Italian dialogue				4,5
Dubbing direction				4,5

The Lives of Others
(Das Leben der Anderen, Germany 2006)

"The Lives of Others" is a lovely film, in which, behind the story of ordinary people crushed by the regime one reads a great metaphor of the relationship between reality and representation. Georg and Christa-Maria, dramatist and actress in order to carry on working, are forced, he, to pretend to be obsequious of the system even though, secretly he writes articles denouncing the system and she, to sleep with the Minister of Culture. In that which is their real life, they don’t know it but they’re representing themselves for the Stasi, and the agent charged with taping scenes and lines changes his reports in order to save them, handing the government a different representation of reality.

What possible life can one have when one is forced to pretend in order to survive? von Donnersmarck suggests that survival is in thought and in art: the once upon a time inflexible Stasi agent Gerd Wiesler will find redemption and his humanity in the words of Brecht and in music, the “sonata for a good man” which will change his life.

A grand film, perfect in the screenplay, direction and interpretation.

The dubbing is also of an excellent level. The Italian dialogues are dry, rigorous, adequate, with neither rhetoric smudges nor imprecisions.

The direction of the actors who interpret their role very credibly, is extremely good: the star (Angelo Maggi), whose voice comes across as being compressed by the role which suffocates all that is human in him; the lieutenant colonel (Danilo De Girolamo), who hisses metallically and expresses all the mechanical ferocity of power; Georg (Francesco Prando), whose Italian voice could not have been more adapt and finally Christa-Maria, to whom Laura Boccanera renders every vibration of her suffering without ever breaking down.

If one really wants to find a flaw, perhaps at times the sinc could have been a little more accurate even in the, albeit difficult, close-ups.

[original review in Italian by Giovanni Rampazzo]