Movie Reviews for The Lives of Others

The Lives of Others

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Movie Reviews of The Lives of Others

Movie Review: The Future In America
Summary: 5 Stars

Anyone who wonders what life will be like under President Hillary Clinton needs only to watch this film......

Movie Review: Surpisingly good movie
Summary: 4 Stars

I enjoyed this movie but it is easier to follow if you have some knowledge of German. Nevertheless, I generally don't like foreign language films and found this one refreshing. It is a good reminder of what the cold war was about (on a personal level) and is a cautionary tale about the abuses of absolute power. The acting is very good as the character's emotions come through even with the language barrier. Certainly not in my top ten of movies but worth seeing.

Movie Review: The most recent evil in Germany
Summary: 5 Stars

This is a compelling and original film. For almost two decades the plight of East Germany has been neglected in art, overshadowed by the monolitic evil prevalent in pre 1945 Germany. But in reality, the poor citizens of East Germany, partitioned off into the Russian sector after World War II, lived for years under an equally menacing and brutal dictatorship. Ok the Stazi didn't kill as many people as the Nazi's, but as George Orwell said, the most perfect dictatorship doesn't need to kill anyone. The Stazi, informers for the puppet Moscow compliant government of East Germany up until 1989, scrutinized every aspect of citizens' lives, snuffing out any individual liberty and freedom their compatriots in the West enjoyed. Life was pure, dogged, misery for so many people.

So this film by Florian Henckel von Donnersmark, his debut, is a welcome addition to the European cinema scene. It is a subtle and thrilling tale, superbly acted and scripted, which portrays the plight of Georg Dreyman, a popular playwright who is a supporter of Communism but sympathetic to dissidents which earns him the suspicion of the regime. Hardline Stazi informer, Gerd Weisler, brilliantly portrayed by Ulrih Muhe, who tragically died of stomach cancer shortly after filming, is dispached to monitor the actions of Dreyman and his actress girlfriend. In a moving story that unfolds along the premise of a saying attributed to Lenin that he couldn't appreciate Beethoven's Appasionata as it made him sympathise with the little people he needed to crush in order to instigate revolution, Weisler finds Dreyman's world of culture, art and music a warm and humane antidote to his own solitary life in a tower block where his only solace comes from visits by a elephantine thighed Stazi commissioned hooker.

After a composer friend of Dreyman commits suicide, Dreyman breaks ranks with the regime and writes a piece using a smuggled typewriter (all East German computers were registered) on suicide rates in East Germany. Suspicions amongst the police grow, and Weisler finds himself under pressure to close the net in on Dreyman and his girlfriend.

The denoument is tragic, followed by a heartfelt epilogue which takes the time frame beyond the falling of the Berlin wall, and redemption for the hardline Weisler. The closing lines are a beautiful cinematic Haiku (though only appreciated in the original German).

The film is beautifully terse with the bleakness of East Germany brought out with realistic browns and subtle greys, period details that give a good indication of the privations of life beyond the Iron curtain.

The film is not flawless - not a single joke (I know it's a serious film, but even Macbeth has the Porters' scene) and a rather overblown score slightly chip the poise and balance of the movie.

For a greater understanding of the movie's context in historical and cinematic terms, I urge people to read Timothy Garton Ash's brilliant review in the New York Review of Books, you can easily find it via google.

Movie Review: Wonderful International Film
Summary: 5 Stars

This is a wonderful international film that shows how the Stazi or state police in Eastern Germany spied on and manipulated its citizens. They start spying on a writer who is believed to be the least likely to have any ill will towards his government. Over time however as he sees how his friends in the arts who have negative opinions of the communist government are oppressed his feelings change and he starts writing subversive material however the lead agent spying on the writer comes to very much secretly start to like the writer.