
Antonio Tabucchi’s novel, Pereira Declares, and Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck’s film, The Lives of Others, both feature a stifling totalitarian government. Tabucchi’s novel features an older man writing for a magazine in Salazarist Lisbon, Portugal in the 1930’s. He is a careful man who, like many fellow citizens, fears the people in charge of his country. Pereira is scared of writing anything that would anger the government, and is wary of change. Whilst searching for assistant, Pereira comes across a young revolutionary, Moteiro Rossi, and asks Rossi to work for him as an obituary writer. Pereira quickly learns that Rossi’s writing is dangerous because Rossi disagrees with the government. The turning point of the novel is when Pereira decides to publish an anti-government document he agrees with. Von Donnersmarck’s film features a favored playwright Dreyman, his lover Christa-Maria, and the government surveillance Captain Gerd Weisler all struggling to find harmony between the government and their personal beliefs. Dreyman himself is in good standing with the government at the beginning, but that all changes when his lover, Christa-Maria, is desired by a high government official. The Stasi place Captain Weisler above Dreyman’s apartment with hopes to catch him doing something anti-government to please the official. Tabucchi and von Donnersmarck’s works similarly concentrate on the effects a dominating government has on its citizens though surveillance and censorship, along with how people react to a government so convoluted.

Totalitarianism is a kind of political system where one person or a group of people have all the power. The nation is thought to be more important than its individual citizens. This way of thinking is thought to justify a complete control the lives, public and private, of the people living under a totalitarian government; a control which extends to regulated education, extreme censorship, propaganda, and persecution. (Totalitarianism) This kind of government often stifles artistic expression because of strict regulation. Plays, books, articles, paintings, or anything created that could be interpreted as a slight to the government was banned and the artist might be monitored, arrested, or even abducted. This lack of freedom made artists of all kinds feel stifled and afraid. The news reports, books and all forms of public literature in these situations would generally be pro-government because the media, press, and writer’s lives would be under surveillance by the government.

 The Stasi were an East German secret police force in power from around 1960-1990 whose goal was to “infiltrate every institution of society and every aspect of daily life, including even intimate personal and familial relationships” (Cameron). The Stasi had a “vast network of informants and unofficial collaborators (inoffizielle Mitarbeiter), who spied on and denounced colleagues, friends, neighbors, and even family members.” (Cameron) Citizens would report on one another in the hopes of being favored by the government themselves, or people were given the chance to get others in trouble to lessen their own sentence.

Surveillance plays an important role in both Pereira Declares and The Lives of Others. The reader can see how the government influences Pereira by the careful way he speaks and writes. Pereira’s body demonstrates how uneasy he is when he is out on the streets of Lisbon, or in his workplace, when he is “drenched in sweat.” (Tabucchi 20; Ch 5) Pereira also believes his housekeeper spies on him. There is a perceived threat that at all times the government is watching, or listening. The uncertainty and paranoia that comes with not knowing whether someone is being monitored keeps people acting their best always, and the surveillance was kept up by more than just law enforcers. In The Lives of Others, East German playwright Georg Dreyman was unknowingly monitored by Stasi Captain Gerd Weisler. At the end of the film Drayman’s lover, Christa-Maria, informs on him under pressure from the Stasi, specifically, Weisler. Many of Dreyman’s writer friends were under surveillance by the Stasi, which scared many of them into censoring their works.

Censoring, like surveillance, is important to the government systems demonstrated in Pereira Declares and The Lives of Others. If an artist in East Germany were to get in trouble with the Stasi, the government could strongly censor him or her. They could make it so the artist never performed their art for the public again. A blacklisted artist in The Lives of Others named Jerska points out how effective this method is when he asks “what is a director if he can’t direct? He is a projectionist without a film, a miler without corn. He is nothing. Nothing at all.” Forbidding an artist to do their work is effective because it takes away his or her life’s ambition, their dream, their motivation. Without it most become compliant and depressed, or when it is threatened to be taken away, like in Christa-Maria’s case, they become very willing to assist the Stasi. Another example of a threatening government is when the Stasi break into Drayman’s house while he is away and the neighbor walks in on them. The frightened neighbor is threatened into not telling Drayman what happened or her daughter’s place in college could be in trouble. for the Stasi, intimidating to ensure silence was a popular method of censorship. Pereira does not believe in the government, but when he is approached to publish a piece that stands against it he declares it “unpublishable, completely unpublishable,” because he does not want to risk his safety for his beliefs at the beginning of the novel. (22; Ch. 5) The government is completely in control when they have taken away the right to, or have frightened people so they will not try to, criticize the state. The resemblances between these two works go beyond similar government styles.  

Death is a common theme for both Pereira and Dreyman. Dreyman conspires with his fellow writers to compose an article about the high suicide rates in East Germany that the government is not addressing, and Pereria is an obituary writer who himself borderline obsesses over death and the afterlife. One of Pereira’s unpublishable articles was about a political activist “was assassinated… suspicion rest[ed] on his political opponents,” (22; Ch. 5). Throughout the novel Pereira’s thoughts gravitate back to death. The death of his wife, his own death, whether he believes in the reincarnation of the soul and the body, and at the end, the death of Rossi. These two writers do not dare to venture outside what the government has deemed fit until the death of a friend. They used pseudonyms when signing their respective articles to remain safe, and both of their houses were raided and they had people spying on them.  However, Pereira had to be coaxed by many people to write what he believed in, and his journey was about self-discovery. Whereas Dreyman’s focus was to get the article written for the public, Pereira wrote his to stand up for his personal beliefs, not for the public.  “Pereira’s quest ends in the discovery of personal freedom, in carrying out an act of protest, and at that moment a heroic character is engilded: through self- revelation, he discovers the society that is all around him.” (Salas/Elorza)

Captain Gerd Weisler and Pereira both demonstrated their contempt nonverbally. Observing Pereira’s body language reveals his true thoughts behind what he is saying. His body language helps demonstrate to the reader that he does not believe everything he declares, or the opinions of people in authority over him just because they are in a higher position of power. Weisler demonstrates this quality as well when he covers for Dreyman after learning he was only under surveillance to eliminate as a romantic rival. An example of Pereira’s telling body language is when, “he broke out in a slight sweat” when Marta, a woman whom he had just met and danced with at a Salazarist festival, said that Mussolini should be “on his way” (17; Ch. 4). Pereira was nervous about Marta getting into trouble because he, Marta, and Marta’s sweetheart, Moteiro Rossi, were all in a place where that kind of talk would not be encouraged or tolerated. Pereira sweats when he is uncomfortable, and he sweats a lot when he is walking in Lisbon, or at his work place. Weisler does not speak much in the film. His thoughts are portrayed though the camera and his body language. Many times in the movie Weisler’s face is held on camera past what is typical. The camera’s lingering suggests that Weisler is trying to communicate with the viewer that he has a secret opinion. The long panned out camera angles lend a sense of drama to the scene; like when Weisler was interrogating Christa-Maria, it created distance and tension between them when they were only a few feet away. It is also obvious how uptight and inflexible Weisler seems from the way his clothes are buttoned to the top and his ridged posture. It is therefore surprising when the viewer sees Stasi Captain Weisler break rules repeatedly for Dreyman, and ultimately sacrifices his job. They both began to act out against the government in small ways, before a final act of “treason.”

These works mirror each other so well because they are both reactions to a government that does not give its people freedom of expression. It makes sense that they are so similar because oppressed people are not happy, and fight to be free. The stories line up because the situation they are written in calls for the same course of action: rebellion.
