Reviews: Movie

The Lives of Others

Directed by Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck, starring Ulrich Muehe, Sebastian Koch

This German film succeeds on all levels as an intelligent drama, a political thriller and an emotional roller-coaster. It deserves much more than an Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film. It is simply one of the best movies, if not the best, of 2006.

Appropriately, the story begins in East Berlin in 1984, when a gifted writer is caught between political pressure and personal integrity. Then the Minister of Culture puts his apartment under surveillance. The premise is quite melodramatic because the minister covets the writer's wife.

However, the treatment is anything but melodramatic. The transformation of the secret police officer and all the other plot twists are so skillfully conveyed that they are not only convincing, but almost inevitable.

In a repressive totalitarian regime, how can one maintain his or her survival instinct and humanity at the same time? This masterpiece of restraint eschews all Hollywood cliches, leaving you cold and shivering at the cruelty of the world, yet still with a ray of hope at the fundamental goodness of humankind. It is movie-making of the highest order. Raymond Zhou

(China Daily 03/27/2007 page20)