Click to play videoCast: Martina Gedeck, Ulrich Mühe, Sebastian Koch
Director: Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck
If you’re so lucky that the excellent German film The Lives of Others has checked into multiplexes in your city too, then don’t spare a moment to think, just go watch it. Work up the appetite for a thought-provoking experience because it’s a film that will haunt you until long after you’ve left your seat.
The story’s set in East Germany in 1984, five years before the Berlin Wall came down, and at a time when the Stasi, the country’s relentless secret police was closely watching everyone in the Communist German Democratic Republic.
A Stasi officer, Wiesler, is instructed to bug the home of celebrated playwright Dreyman, in the hope of collecting evidence against him. This operation is backed by a top governmental bigwig who’s looking for dirt on Dreyman whose girlfriend he wants to sleep with.
Immersing himself into the case, Wiesler listens in on Dreyman’s private moments with his friends, his colleagues and his girlfriend. But even as he chances upon enough evidence that can easily implicate Dreyman, Wiesler finds himself becoming convinced of Dreyman’s inherent innocence, and makes significant efforts to protect him.
Winner of the 2006 Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film, The Lives of Others is on one level a political thriller no doubt, but it’s also a remarkable study of human emotion.
At its core, at its very heart, the film asks one tough question – what does an honest man do when the very situation he’s willingly got himself into is a dishonest one to begin with?
It’s a question that answers itself in the film, and the irony doesn’t escape you when the end titles roll. The Lives of Others is a deeply moving film that’s melancholy for the most part, yet always engaging thanks to the appropriately minimalist performance by actor Ulrich Muehe who plays Weisler.
The star of the film however, is its first time writer-director Florian von Donnersmarck who creates such a genius work.
It’s not your typical Saturday night out at the movies, but if you’re in search of food for thought, it’s unlikely you’ll find anything better. That’s four out of five for The Lives of Others, exactly the kind of movie that shows us why cinema can change your life.
Rating: 4 / 5 (Very Good)
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