The Lives of Others
|
List Price: Our Price: $3.68 You Save: $11.31 (75%) Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days Buy Used: from $2.58 (click here) Category: DVD See more DVD releases |
|---|
Buy this DVD movie at online store in your country
Canada
Canada
Movie Reviews of The Lives of Others
Movie Review: Thaw Factor
Summary: 5 Stars
Watching `The Lives of Others' I was reminded of so many periodical articles that told of the oppressive existence behind the Iron Curtain. Besides a poignant drama that puts a face on human misery, the film shows just what those days were like before Gorbachev created the thaw in Eastern Europe. The movie centers around Georg Dreyman (Sebastian Koch), a playwright who wrote benign, but heartfelt shows that didn't cast must suspicion upon him from the Stasi, a government surveillance organization keen on bugging the dwelling places of artists and other suspicious people. Being prudent and thorough, mole Wiesler (Ulrich Muhe) bugs Dreyman's apartment and spends all his working hours listening to every moment, mundane or intimate, inside the writer's life. Splitting a shift with a colleague, we get an eerie sense--especially with the chilling, understated music--of what life was like, coming into fruition as closely as possible to Orwell's '1984'. (Significantly, the vast majority of the movie reinacts the events of that very year.) Besides a lover (Martina Gedeck), Dreyman keeps close company with elder playwright, Albert Jerska, who spars with despair after being blacklisted for outspoken writing. Tip-toeing throughout, there is an unnerving atmosphere that surrounds the relationships and any brazen initiatives to foster the truth.
I was hypnotized by the movie, but also impressed with its import. It's not only a story about Dreyman, but it shows Wiesler's shallow existence as a government spy. In one scene, Wiesler goes to a bar and tries to use a pick-up line that he heard Dreyman use with his girlfriend. The actors also convey well the fear and resignation of pre-glasnost Eastern Germany. In one particularly memorable scene, a young colleague at the Stasi comes to the cafeteria telling his friends a joke about the Party Chairman. Little does he realize that his superiors are sitting just within earshot. How he nervously finishes his joke showcases a marvelously revealing performance. Indeed, one of the great observations of the movie is how it zeroes in on those unguarded foot-in-mouth occasions that put decent citizens in great peril. From beginning to end, `The Lives of Others' really connects the dots between present and past in an illuminating way. The movie is a testament to the triumph of the arts over the human spirit. (While I rooted for 'Pan's Labyrinth' to win best Foreign Picture Oscar, there can hardly be too much of a grudge after seeing the winner.)
Movie Review: Winner for a Reason, Timeless for a Reason
Summary: 5 Stars
While some out there are still bitter about Pan's Labyrinth losing its thought-to-be destined Academy Award to this film, I would like to argue that The Lives of Others presents a wholly more memorable and moving experience while still adhering to a very attractive style. Writer-director Donnersmarck's cinematic debut not only pulls at our heartstrings, but he also brings us to the verge of tears without becoming overly sentimental or preachy.
Every element of this film is worthy of praise. The acting is superb. Ulrich Mühe stands out as the loyal STASI official, Wiesler, who finds himself questioning whether his duty is to the people, or to the party. The writing is wrought with beautiful moments of characterization and heartfelt but realistic dialogue. Wiesler reading poetry to himself, fantastic moments of dramatic irony, or the poet's, Georg Dreyman's, comments on his friend's gift, a piano piece entitled "Sonata for Good Men." The direction and cinematography seem to work in tandem to provide a slow and careful look at each set and location, further describing the characters without having to muddle with exposition. The pacing is perfect. Scenes unfold and Donnersmarck takes us to the next one with seemingly no transition, but enough synergy to keep a flow going throughout. Even at two hours, the engrossing plot and splendid pacing keep you riveted.
So, The Lives of Others is, as a film, well done, all around. But why did it deserve its Oscar? Why is it not only very good, but amazing? The answer is in what its message is and how said message is presented. One might expect that even though the film has been lauded on countless occasions for its poetic beauty, cynical filmgoers might only expect the tired message that communism is bad. Of course, communist states are very much police states will be bad. Donnersmarck knows that people who watch his film will know this. What we see is unlikely protagonist, Captain Wiesler, not only loyal to the party, but to its ideals and enforcer of its laws. However, a disparity between loyalty to the state, to its people, and his loyalty to his fellow, affluent party members arises. This film does not argue against communism. It argues against overbearance by a government against its people. Wiesler's values are not shaken, but his viewpoint is broadened. In the end, it isn't about a rebel or an anarchist. This story is about someone who realized that his ideals were being twisted and decided to work towards what he thought was right.
Movie Review: The Joyless Lives of Imperfect Humans
Summary: 5 Stars
"It may be arguably true that, in Jean-Paul Sartre's words, "hell is other people," but what "The Lives of Others" brilliantly proves is that drama fits exactly the same definition." Kenneth Turin
1984, ring a bell? The years in Germany just before the fall of the Berlin Wall. We are taken on a ride like none other with Capt. Gert Wiesler (Ulrich Muehe), a domestic surveillance specialist and interrogation expert who works for the Ministry for State Security. Professionally, he's identified only as HGW XX/7 working for Stasi. The time is grim, Capt. Wiesler dresses in gray, a trim jacket and pants, and lives a gray life. He is indoctrinated into the system and everything is for the State. The richness of life is missing, the State must know everything and your neighbors, your family may be spying on you.
Capt Wielser is invited to a play by his superior, and he creates an interest in poet and playwright Georg Dreyman (Sebastian Koch). Wiselier takes an instant dislike to him and his girlfriend, Christa-Maria Sieland (Martina Gedeck), an actress in Dreyman's play. Soon Capt Wielser is involved in a plot to spy on the two. The Minister of Culture, or vulture in this case, has a sexual interest in Christa-Maria. Their apartment is bugged, and Capt Wiesler has taken a 12 hour shift to listen to everything that occurs. He finds a lot occurs and soon he is very interested in this couple. Some of what he finds he reports, the rest, well, Capt Wiesler becomes involved in their lives. His sense of identity becomes confused and the face of secrecy and the grayness seems to change.
The score for 'The Lives of Others' is fabulous. Gabriel Yared and his sometime orchestrator, Stéphane Moucha write and play the score. The score has delicate and luxurious melodies. Unfortunately, the score on the the CD of the same name is cut and is only thirty minutes, but it is still glorious. It matches each character and mood of the film and is haunting.
The film has one of the most moving endings and as Peter Travis says,"It's an ending you don't see coming, yet it feels totally right. Von Donnersmarck, the first time Director, has crafted the best kind of movie: one you can't get out of your head."
This film won an Academy Award for Best Foreign Film of 2006. Richly deserved.
Highly Recommended. prisrob 01-06-08
Movie Review: Brilliant and Gripping
Summary: 5 Stars
The Lives of Others is a brilliant film. Students of the Cold War and of the former German Democratic Republic will recognize this immediately. Through the tale told in this film the drab mediocrity, the harshness and the sadness of lives imprisoned by communism in East Germany come to full, rich and complex life. The stress and the terror of a totalitarian state and the degrading betrayals made by its citizens in helpless circumstances are delicately interwoven to bring both the lives and moods to realistic portrayal. This is not a Tom Clancyesque film of intrigue; viewers looking for action and visual gratification should seek other films.
While the depth of the German language is lost in clunky translation, the mediocrity of life behind the Iron Curtain is starkly brought to life. The stark and harsh tones used to color the film, the blocky unpainted housing, the lack of Trabant cars on the spacious socialist city boulevards,--even the dissident circles look cheaply dressed--it all blends to recreate the dreary mood of life in 1980s East Germany.
The characters are all played flawlessly, but particular note goes to that of the main character, Stasi Captain Gerd Wiesler. He slowly transforms from true believer in the Socialist ideal and faithful servant of the DDR regime to questioning individual to the silent and ghostlike protector of Georg Dreyman, the dissident he was assigned to destroy for a Party apparatchik's personal motives. As a true believer, his transformation to thinking and sympathetic human being is all the more poignant as it practically destroys him in the end. Perhaps the saddest and most heartbreaking scene is when Dreyman locates Wiesler two years after the collapse of the Wall and the GDR itself: we see Wiesler, former stiffly uniformed Hauptmann of the Stasi secret police, now walking dejectedly in a rundown section of Berlin, resignedly delivering mail from a beat up mail cart to beat up mailboxes.
The near two and a half hours of the film is necessary and welcome as it allows for full plot development and denouement. Seeing Wiesler in the final scene, recognizing his actions had good consequences and finally doing a small thing for himself, is the film's smallest but most powerful moment. This is a film that will grip the soul.
Movie Review: If Only American Films Could Be This Good
Summary: 5 Stars
I've read that this film won the Best Foreign Film Oscar at last year's Academy Awards...but I can't remember any of the other awards. The dire state of American Cinema is only worsened by far better films coming in from other shores.
While Hollywood gussies up and prepares to throw more awards at anything anti-Bush, anything that features George Clooney (who will out-preen himself at his acceptance speeches instead of his performance), and anything that obese gasbag Michael Moore points a camera at, foreign films appear to be more interested in things like TELLING A STORY or ENGAGING AN AUDIENCE. You know, stuff the focus groups that rule Hollywood appear to have completely forgotten.
But enough about our mess here....
I'd heard about "The Lives of Others" but deliberately stayed out of the conversation because I wanted to enjoy the film from a fresh perspective, so I won't go into every reason why I liked it. Suffice to say I liked just about everything in it. It is a film where everything works.
Set in East Germany in 1984 (an homage to George Orwell?), a Stasi surveillance and interrogation expert named Wiesler, wonderfully played by Ulrich Muhe, is asked to spy on Dreyman, an "upstanding" playwright admired by the State for his "non-rebellious" body of work. Why? A repulsive party member lusts after Christa-Marie, Dreyman's beautiful and talented actress/girlfriend. If they don't find anything on Dreyman...they're to find something on Dreyman.
The story expertly winds and twists through the Cold War landscape of East Berlin as Wiesler, stoicly rattled by the injustice of Dreyman's plot and touched by Christa-Marie's stage presence, goes from being an efficient, machine-like bug to a compassionate human being.
I didn't see a false note anywhere in the film. Like I said: Everything Works. Definitely check it out.
(I was just in Berlin last fall and visited the Stasi Museum, just around the corner from Hitler's bunker. Any German citizen can go in--just as Dreyman did after the Wall fell in the film--and request his or her file to review. A dark and fascinating time in a city still struggling with the shadow of the Nazis. Berlin's a great city. Well worth visiting and taking any of their walking tours).