Subtitles may drive you up the wall but these will drive you through it. (The Lives Of Others (DVD))

Member Name: thedevilinme

Product:	The Lives Of Others (DVD)
Date:	10/02/08 (108 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Excellent foreign film

Disadvantages: Wont win the big awards

Hope Always Dies Last

The Lives of Others is hot favorite to win best foreign film at tonight's BAFTAs; some say that this level of foreign film is worthy of being included in the top best picture categories at the big award ceremonies. With the Oscars still not confirmed, tonight's awards will hopefully be the biggest and best this year and bestow this excellent German movie with even more garlands. It's very rare you get intelligent and beautifully acted film like this into the mainstream cinema and if you take your foreign film seriously then this has to be top of your list to rent, if you haven't already..

It's the fictional tale of two men as far apart as you can get, exploring their trials and tribulations in the old communist East Germany, their lives crossing in the final throws of the Cold War, one a famous playwright that is loyal to the régime, the other a Stassi officer, equally obedient to his country and profession. Through the conscious of two men of opposing views and lives, one the listener and watcher, the other the creator and performer, the metaphor of the Berlin Wall coming down is played out through their actions and emotions as hope floods into their lives.

At East Germanys communist prime, 100,000 Stassi secret police and some 200,000 informers had the goal to 'know everything'. If you informed on your friends and neighbors you would be rewarded with western privileges, but if you questioned it, that action alone could see you interrogated or even imprisoned. Artistes and the like, who were given some freedoms to question the countries politics, were assigned extra surveillance and manpower because the state never knew what they were thinking, the biggest danger to any regime.

The Berlin Wall metaphor in the intricate and skilled narrative is so cleverly done in this film, wrapped in a stunning soundtrack and brilliant performances. This is one of those movies that if you really concentrate then it's a multi-layered treat that will leave you in awe. I didn't quite concentrate that much but was still impressed and I'm sure I will watch it again. Subtitles may drive you up the wall but these drive you though it.

-The Cast-

Martina Gedeck ... Christa-Maria Sieland
Ulrich Mühe ... Hauptmann Gerd Wiesler
Sebastian Koch ... Georg Dreyman
Ulrich Tukur ... Oberstleutnant Anton Grubitz
Thomas Thieme ... Minister Bruno Hempf
Hans-Uwe Bauer ... Paul Hauser
Volkmar Kleinert ... Albert Jerska
Matthias Brenner ... Karl Wallner
Charly Hübner ... Udo
Herbert Knaup ... Gregor Hessenstein
Bastian Trost ... Häftling 227
Marie Gruber ... Frau Meineke
Volker Michalowski ... Schriftexperte (as Zack Volker Michalowski)
Werner Daehn ... Einsatzleiter in Uniform
Martin Brambach ... Einsatzleiter Meyer

-The Plot-

Respected playwright Georg Dreyman (Sebastian Koch) is adored by the communist establishment for writing plays that favor the regime, he more than willing to talk up and praise socialist values through his work. But his faith is tested when his writing partner and director Albert Jerska (Volkmar Kleinert) is blacklisted by the party for allegedly writing anti-communist literature. When Jerska hangs himself because he can't work, Dreyman loses faith with his masters and decides to have the guts to write from his heart, penning a secret article for Das Spiegel, which is smuggled to the West.

Oblivious to this change of mind, the head of the East Berlin Stassi in Minister Bruno Hempf (Thomas Thieme) decides to bug Dreyman, not because he's suspicious of him so much but because he fancies Dreymans beautiful actress girlfriend in Christa-Maria Sieland (Martina Gedeck), the plan being to get Dryman watched and so eventually out of the picture so he can have his evil way with her. The Minister for culture is not a good looking man and so his pervy harassment and eventual sexual assault on Christa is a wretched experience for here, but something she can't tell Georg about as it will destroy him, she already broken by the system and so immune to the pain. Hope always dies last.

Dreyman's Stassi watchers will be experienced agent Wiesler (Ulrich Mühe) and officer Hessenstein (Herbert Knaup), located across the street in a dirty attic, tasked to listen and watch everything that happens in Goergs apartment. At first Wielser is determined to nail him, reporting to his superior every day, Lieutenant Anton Grubitz (Ulrich Tukur). But soon he is drawn into Georgs passionate love of words, classical music and Christa, mesmerized by the 'Appassionato', a famous piano piece played by Goeg that not only resonates in Wielsers headphones but his very sole, the first crack in the agents own Berlin Wall. The sad and tumbling piano notes bring his grey and meaningless world the fist ray of light, which seeds hopes, soon turning a blind-eye and death-ear to reporting things that happen in the flat that may bring this investigation to an abrupt end, dismissing Agent Hessenstein to hide his collaboration. This is no longer a surveillance operation but an awakening of a man bereft of any freedom of thought or emotion, ironically just as his subjects life is going the other way as Dreyman is slowly been stripped bare as Christa drifts away into her private pain.

-Conclusions-

Sometimes you watch a movie and you're unaware just how important it may be. Writing a screenplay of this quality must have been some task. That introverted and invisible bond between the two, the writer being written about, is the genius of this film. It must have been a eureka moment for writer and director Florien Hankel Von Donnersmack when he came up with that plot mechanism. It's just so smart and original; a film that only comes along once in a blue moon.
The acting is outstanding, especially from the two male protagonists of Wiesler and Dreymen, two performances that needed to be spot on so you could see the light of hope being passed from one to the other, but at the same time extinguishing the others flame. Ulrich Mühe`s, Ben Kinglseyesque performance as Agent Wiesler is superb and boy does he deserve the gongs for it tonight. Sadly he died late last of an undisclosed illness last year. Forget Pans Labyrinth-this is the foreign film of 2007.

-Ratings-

Imdb.com scores it 8.6 out of 10.0 (31,234 votes)
That's very high guys for the Imdb!

= = = = SPECIAL FEATURES = = = =

Audio Commentary by director Florien Hankel Von Donnersmack (not subtitles)

Extended & Deleted Scenes

Q&A with Cast & Crew

This is quite an interesting one as far as they go, especially as the lead actor who plays Wiesler was, rather ironically, watched by the Stassi before the wall came down. In the nineties a museum was set up at the old Stassi headquarters, where the civilians were allowed to go in and see all the files and photographs kept on them, and find out who were informing on them, friends and family etc, quite an experience for anyone.

-The Making of The Lives of Others-

Again more of the same revealing stuff, how the East Germans would control and dictate your lives to the extreme socialist cause. Not only is this a great movie but the extras are good too.

= = = = = = = = == = = =
-RuN TiMe 137 minutes-
Grown ups only
Now on the 3 DVDs for £7 weekly deal at Blockbusters.
= = = = = = = = = = = = =

Summary: Goodbye Honniker..