History in Films

The films The Lives of Others and Persepolis differ greatly in the stories they tell and how they tell them. Persepolis uses 2-dimensional animation to tell the story of Marjane, a girl who grew up in a country ravaged by war and oppression. The Lives of Others tells the story of Wiesler, a Stasi captain in East Berlin putting a man under total surveillance. Despite the differences between the stories, they share common ground in critiquing oppressive governments that punish people for disagreeing with them and for essentially trying to run the lives of its citizens. Both movies end similarly with Marjane moving to France to escape Iran and with Wiesler protecting Georg from getting arrested by the Stasi for writing the article about the concealed suicide rates in the GDR. In both films, an innocent party is liberated from a government whose purpose is to restrict its liberties. Both films communicate the message of the necessity to be true to oneself when one's government and one's own personal beliefs conflict with one another, despite the consequences.

Marjane stays true to herself by resolving to never compromise her values at the end of the film in honor of her Uncle Anoosh, who is a representation of integrity in the film. In the scene where the students at her college are at a meeting and the women are being asked to where longer scarves and tighter pants, she speaks out against this new regulation, pointing out the contradictions the speakers made. We see throughout the movie Marjane is not afraid to speak her mind. In the scene where the nuns are complaining about Marjane eating out of a saucepan, one nun remarks that Iranians have no education. Marjane stands up for herself by angrily replying that all the nuns used to be prostitutes, losing her housing. Although speaking out against the nuns caused them to kick her out, she was still true to herself by not letting them insult her for her nationality. When Marjane wrongfully accuses a man of insulting her to avoid getting in trouble with the police, she compromises her integrity and disappoints her grandmother. In this instance not staying true to herself detrimentally affected someone else.

Wiesler stays true to himself by going against the Stasi to protect Georg and Christa-Maria. He is shocked when he discovers the reason Georg has been put under surveillance is so that they might be able to find some incriminating evidence to have him arrested so Hempf can have his lover Christa-Maria. Despite truly believing in what the GDR stands for, he understands that their motives for putting Georg under surveillance are not for the security of the state, and eventually ends up losing his job to protect Georg's freedom of speech. If he were to have continued doing his job the way the Stasi wanted him to, Georg would have been arressted; like Marjane, compromising his integrity would have detrimentally affected to someone else. Even when he interrogates Christa-Maria to find out where Georg's typewriter is and discovers its location, he goes over to their house to take it so Georg won't get arrested.

In the film Hate, Kossowitz portrays the Parisian suburbs as a place in which the three main characters, Hubert, Saïd, and Vinz, are able to move about more or less freely. They do run into trouble with the police, but it's not a serious problem. When the three go to Paris to meet Snoopy, however, they are met with much more hostility from the police, who also purposely keep Saïd and Hubert in captivity long enough for them to miss the last train out of Paris. They are all stuck now. While Paris may be a famous city bustling with life, culture, romance, art, wine, and all the other wonderful things people associate with Paris, it is only welcoming to those who are welcome.

Paris may not necessarily be a city of closed spaces that trap people in them, but to Hubert, Saïd, and Vinz they are because they are outsiders. In the scene where Hubert, Saïd, and Vinz are in the art gallery, they stick out like a sore thumb due to their attire, standing out from the well dressed, 'cultured' Parisians. It's very easy for someone who is in a city or in a social landscape they are not from to feel trapped by their new surroundings. For example, I come from Washington, DC, a thriving city I feel I can freely navigate through. My parents have a summer house in Piney Point, MD in St. Mary's County, a more rural area of Maryland. Although there is far more open space there, when I go there with them, I feel metaphorically trapped because it's not in an environment I'm accustomed to. I feel trapped by how far spaced everything is; it takes much longer to get from the house to shopping areas, about a half hour, which limits my ability to move around in St. Mary's County because the amount of time it takes me to get from certain places takes away from the spend I can spend at those actual places. I have a feeling someone who grew up in a rural area would also feel trapped in a way if they were to go to a city environment; however, I acknowledge that contrasting my situation with theirs is not accurate nor is it fair.

What Kossovitz is trying to communicate in his movie that an experience of a certain area is a very subjective one, no cities or environments are inherently better than others, and that they're not all or nothing. A person from Paris who visits the Parisian suburbs may view them as being very hostile to them, while a person who actually grew up there might disagree and counter that Paris is a very hostile place for them. It's not fair to say that one place is better than another because they all have their pros and cons, and different people will prefer different kinds of places based on the environment in which they grew up and their personality. Paris may be called the 'City of Love', but that doesn't necessarily make it so to others.