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The most helpful favourable review
The most helpful critical review
156 of 162 people found the following review helpful:
Easily one of the top five films I have ever seen...
Utterly, utterly wonderful. This is a story of redemption and atonement and explores whether, and to what extent, they are possible. The contrast of the personal joy, love, friendship, kinship and art, against the backdrop and circumstance of the 1984 GDR is completely sublime and the direction is faultless. It is the acting that is jaw-dropping though - an Oscar for...
Published on 23 Jul 2007 by Bythepowerofgreyskull
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15 of 25 people found the following review helpful:
very good but...
I was, I admit, gripped by this drama and am unable to add much to the effusive praises of other reviewers. However, as is often the way when you finally see a movie everyone has raved about, I felt a bit let down. Firstly, I found it too long, the 'coda' at the end dragging on and on. I also felt, despite his superb acting, that Ulrich's change of heart seemed...
Published on 11 Nov 2007 by T. Almy
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156 of 162 people found the following review helpful:
Easily one of the top five films I have ever seen..., 23 Jul 2007
Utterly, utterly wonderful. This is a story of redemption and atonement and explores whether, and to what extent, they are possible. The contrast of the personal joy, love, friendship, kinship and art, against the backdrop and circumstance of the 1984 GDR is completely sublime and the direction is faultless. It is the acting that is jaw-dropping though - an Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film is fantastic recognition, but at least three of the four major acting gongs would have found a more deserved home here. The ending is the most appropriate and well edited I have ever come across and left me in tears - a personal first for any film. I cannot give it higher praise than the truth - I have never seen better cinema than this. Enjoy.
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102 of 106 people found the following review helpful:
A sad, thoughtful and redemptive film, 9 Jun 2007
The Lives of Others (Das Leben der Anderen) is one of the best films I've seen in a long, long time. It's sad, thoughtful and redemptive, and it deals with major themes. We're in East Germany a few years before the fall of the Berlin wall. The Stasi are everywhere, watching everyone and punishing in brutal or subtle ways anyone who might be even an implied threat to the government. Their greatest tool is the system of informers that reaches everywhere, people who may relay indiscretions to the Stasi because they believe in what they are doing, but more often are compromised into doing so. People are given terrible choices to either work with the Stasi as informers or see their careers or their children's futures destroyed. One-third of the East German population is kept under Stasi surveillance. Everyone, it seems, is being watched by someone.
Georg Dreyman (Sebastian Koch) is a playwright who has made his accommodations with the regime, has won awards and has learned not to go too far. The mere fact that he is seen as reliable makes him a subject of Stasi interest. That, and because his lover, the actress Christa-Maria Sieland (Martina Gedeck), is coveted by a powerful official who wants Dreyman ruined. Hauptmann Gerd Wiesler (Ulrich Muhe), a dedicated, colorless Stasi officer, noted for his reliability and interrogation skills, is assigned the job of monitoring Dreyman. This means installing bugs in Dreyman's apartment where Dreyman lives with Sieland, setting up 24 hour monitoring, recording everything and preparing reports. Wiesler takes his share of listening in. Weisler seems to have no purpose but his dedication to the ideals of the East German system, but even he can see the corruption of those ideals. He has no friends to speak of except his boss, who knows which way the wind can shift. Dreyman, on the other hand, is a handsome man of talent who loves Christa and who has seen a close friend and talented director banned from the theater for speaking too clearly. Dreyman gradually finds the conscience he had put on hold in order to be successful. Wiesler gradually finds himself, through listening in, drawn to an awareness of the compromises and corruption he knows has seeped into a system he once believed in. Even more subtly, he finds himself drawn into the lives of Dreyman and Christa-Maria. Slowly, cautiously and anonymously, Wiesler begins to protect Dreyman. All the while we are witness to the pervasive spying on people, the pettiness, the corruption of authority, the use of subtle threats to keep people in line, the almost comic meticulousness of the Stasi and their obsessive record keeping on everyone. The conclusion of the film brings us well past the fall of the Berlin wall, when the full evidence of Stasi spying and the corruption of so many to be informers became evident. We see what happened to both Dreyman and Wiesler. I found the ending to be very, very emotional.
This was director von Donnersmarck's first feature film. He also was the writer. The acting is just as good as the film, particularly Muhe, Koch and Gedeck. Muhe has perhaps the toughest job. He has to show us this dedicated functionary first relentlessly breaking a suspect through calm, psychological questioning, then gradually, gradually letting us see Wiesler's doubts and humanity as he listens into to the lives of Dreyman and Sieland. Muhe makes us aware of Wiesler's changing outlook no faster than Weisler becomes aware of them himself. It's a subtle, strong performance.
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19 of 19 people found the following review helpful:
Amazing, 23 Dec 2007
This film holds you spellbound. I saw it first in the cinema and you could have heard a pin drop. Had read the critics rave reviews particularly about one actor but didn't realise who it was until about half hour into the film. Ulrich Muhe is absolutely superb in his role as the Stasi Officer. He gives a faultless performance. He dominates every scene. How sad to find out he died not too long after making this film. This film is without doubt the best film I have seen in many years. The atmosphere of the GDR inhibits you. The horrors and loss of liberty suddenly become real to the viewer in a way that has never been portrayed before. Fantastic direction of superb actors at a magnificent pace. Buy this and add it to your collection, it will become a classic.
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70 of 73 people found the following review helpful:
Great film-making, 22 Mar 2008
Upon hearing the rave reviews for this film and noticing that it had won Best Foreign Picture at the Oscars, I was expecting to be a little disappointed. How wrong I was. This film does nothing spectacularly different or innovative. It just tells its story and tells it extremely well.
The acting is amazing and if the Oscars had any credibility then Ulrich Muhe would have been nominated in the best actor category. His character starts off as cold and not very likeable, however, we gradually warm to him and by the end my opinion of him had changed utterly. I've only learned upon reading this page that Muhe died shortly after completing this film. It really is a fitting tribute.
It's one of the few films that has moved me to tears by the end and it wasn't achieved by cheap sentimentality but a genuinely moving story and fantastic performances all round.
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14 of 14 people found the following review helpful:
Intelligent and Compulsive, 24 Dec 2007
I cannot recommend this movie to you enough. It is an intelligent and heart-warming story set behind the Iron Curtain in late 20th Century Europe. The set design is fantastic, the filming perfect and the acting sublime. It you enjoy intelligent drama you will love it.
"Die Hard" it isn't.
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11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:
My favourite film of 2007, 20 Jan 2008
The Lives Of Others(Or Leben der Anderen Das) is my favourite film of 2007. I have seen it twice now and on the first time viewing thought it a compelling but rather static film. However having watched it again recently i have now come to the conclusion that the film is a superbly conceived discreet masterpiece.
What is truly remarkable about The Lives Of Others is that for a film running for 137 minutes it is very light on plot. For great swathes of the narrative nothing really propels the film forward but it still retains a mesmeric fascination. Set in East Germany in 1984 it tells the story of Stasis officer Wiesler( Urich Muhe) who is designated by his supercilious superior Grubitz( (Ulrich Tukur) to set up surveillance on playwright Georg Dreyman (Sebastian Koch). Their reasons for doing so are flimsy at best ,based more on supposition than anything and an instinctive mistrust of artists.
Dreyman is having an affair with an actress Christa -Maria( Martina Gedeck) working on his latest production who is also lusted after by the repellent Minister Bruno Hempf ( Thomas Thieme). As Wiesler spends hours, sat in a dingy attic surrounded by his surveillance equipment, diligently logging every conversation he hears in Drayman's flat he gradually changes his affiliation towards the couple and this leads to an inexorable shift in his perception of the political system he works for. Eventually he neglects to mention incriminating evidence in his logs and as it becomes clear Dreyman is indeed implicated in activity that would have him marked out as an enemy of the state Weiss resorts to methods increasingly dangerous to himself in order to cover up for him. What ultimately transpires is full of tragedy and pathos and the final scene is a beautifully composed and moving testament to how one mans actions can have a resounding influence on the destiny of another.
First time director Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck who wrote the script as well does a remarkable job of portraying the austerity and paranoia in East Germany at that time. The film is shot in muted tones to reflect this with Wiesler always dressed in grey and hunched into himself to reflect his myopic world view. Urich Muhe gives a superb performance as Weisler, reining himself in to express everything through his slightly craggy visage and effusive eyes as his character realises the futility and melancholy of his existence, though it must be said all the cast acquit themselves admirably.
The Lives Of Others is imbued with various themes-love, faith, loyalty, deception, redemption sacrifice( And others I'm probably not perceptive enough to notice) and has numerous scenes that stay with the viewer. Apart from the fantastic final scene the one where Weisler steaming open envelopes hears of the fall of the wall and just gets up and walks out of the room without saying a word is especially memorable. A great film all the better for it's quiet subtlety and understated gradations , a lesson many other film makers could do with taking notice of.
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10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:
Stunning, 29 Dec 2007
You've already noticed this film has near-unanimous 5 star reviews, right? So I don't need to say very much. 'The Lives of Others' has a twisty plot worthy of the best thrillers without losing its emotional power. It features a cast of rich and multi-layered characters, and is driven by a compelling and complex performance from the late Ulrich Muhe as Wiesler. The film is in German but the dialogue translates well. The subtitles are large, clear and unintrusive.
Perhaps the film's only downside is that it doesn't tell a true story. But (and remember this while watching it) stories very similar to this one could easily have happened, and probably did happen. In fact, Muhe discovered that he himself had been under Stasi surveillance - allegedly by his own wife. The film weaves all the frightening realities of the Soviet bloc into a completely convincing piece of fiction.
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19 of 20 people found the following review helpful:
Will probably join your top 10 list, 3 Mar 2008
Once in a while, a film comes along, totally unexpectedly, and reveals itself as not just a great film but one that renews your faith in cinema and stays with you long after it has ended. One that shows that film can be the most worthy art form and one which makes you realise this is what the best of cinema really is - intelligent, substantial and made with integrity without employing silly melodramatic contrivances. The Lives of Others is such a film, undoubtedly one of the best films I've seen in the last decade, an intelligent study of a cold, emotionally stern man who undergoes an emotional awakening and humanizing effect by slowly becoming aware of the richness of life that is eluding his own austere existence.
The man in question is Gerd Weisler, a Stasi officer in East Germany in the mid 1980's. He's distrusting and quietly imposing, stands by the socialist ideals of his government and is determined to uncover political dissent wherever possible. He is simply a cog in the regime. There is nothing to warm to, no personality, individuality or life in him. He's a robot worker and nothing else. That is until he is called upon to spy on an artist couple in their apartment who may or may not be up to something. We first see Wiesler's distrust of the writer in an early scene, a distrust based on nothing more than a gut feeling - or perhaps from a twang of jealousy of this man's obvious contentment and fulfillment. To Wiesler, he is simply "arrogant" and so must be a cause for concern. I don't need to go into any more detail about the plot here but needless to say it paves the way for some moments of high tension and clever plot devices.
However, it's what happens to Wiesler's character throughout that really pushes the buttons and makes for such a lasting impression. His transformation from perpetrator to defector, from hunter to protector. During his surveillance mission, he hears everything the couple say and do, mechanically jotting down every last detail in a notebook and then typing up reports. And so he begins to experience the couple's life vicariously and slowly starts to realise that he wants, needs what they have and that he doesn't - friends, love, beauty, fulfillment. We see him start to change, to restrain himself in situations where he would usually impose himself, we see wonderful key moments where he displays acts of kindness and reveals emotions we didn't think he would be capable of. He ends up surprising us, redeeming himself by risking his career and life for the artists, by calmly deflecting the suspicions of his wily superiors about his integrity to the cause, protecting the inevitably tragic couple from above like some personal guardian angel completely unbeknownst to them, who have no idea they are even under surveillance.
Such a character study would be nothing without a great actor and Ulrich Mühe plays the role perfectly, it's hard to imagine anyone else playing it (what a real shame he passed away recently). His role recalls that of Billy Bob Thornton's in The Man Who Wasn't There, someone who hardly says two words but expresses everything beautifully through his body language and facial expressions. We see him in many different states during the course of the film; from a sometimes menacing and ice cold authoritative instructor and interrogator for the Stasi through to a simple menial state postal worker, allowing time to pass him by as he plods along on his route. He is always believable and an interesting character to watch unfold. The rest of the acting is also first rate, especially from Wiesler's Stasi superiors.
Despite the obvious differences, I would sum up The Lives of Others as a The Shawshank Redemption for this decade because of its significant emotional arc. It has a beautifully controlled, unrushed poetic approach and you get the feeling that the filmmaker (also a debut) has put all he has into it, has fashioned it with a lot of care and attention. You could also say that like Shawshank, it follows a man's escape from an oppressive and dehumanising regime to become human once again. Also, the happy ending is perfectly understated and although Wiesler doesn't exactly end up finding happiness, he's afforded a sort of standing ovation at the end and his final words in the film will certainly bring a lump to your throat. You'll want to pat him on the back and shake his hand. An unsung hero given and appreciating the recognition he deserves.
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48 of 53 people found the following review helpful:
Best film in 10 years, 17 Sep 2007
It's impossible to do this film justice by writing a review. It's like watching a revelation in cinema unfold in front of you, as if this was the first film you had ever seen. I don't quite know why that should be, as the structure of the plot is classical and straightforward; everything seems to fall into place perfectly - the acting, the cinematography, the script, the way the plot unfolds.
It made me feel as if I was living the film.
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15 of 16 people found the following review helpful:
"to know everything", 28 Nov 2007
A film about the grey men of the former East German secret police, the infamous "Stasi", does not sound exactly like cinematic gold. However, in the hands of writer/director Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck, this unpromising premise is transformed into one of the finest films it has ever been my privilege to watch.
It is 1984, glasnost is still a few years away, and the Berlin wall that separates East from West Germany seems as solid as ever. In East Germany, no one is above suspicion, and everyone is monitored by the "Stasi", the highly effective and ruthless state secret police, their avowed intention..."to know everything". Captain Gerd Wiesler (Ulrich Muhe) is one of the Stasi's most effective officers, a man dedicated to his job who never asks questions, and firmly believes that he is "the shield and the sword" protecting his country from subversion by the West. However, things change when he is tasked by his superior Grubitz (Ulrich Tukur) to initiate a covert monitoring operation against a successful and apparently loyal writer Georg Dreyman (Sebastian Koch). It quickly becomes apparent to Wiesler that the targeting of Dreyman may have reasons other than him being a threat to state security, it may be less political and more personal. As Wiesler assiduously sets about his assigned task, the conversations he listens in on, and the private moments he secretly shares with Dreyman and his girlfriend Christa (Martina Gedeck) begin to transform this grey, buttoned down man and doubts begin to creep into his otherwise closed mind, doubts about the reasons for monitoring Dreyman, doubts about his superiors, doubts about the very nature of the society he lives and spends his every waking moment protecting, but protecting from whom, that is the real question.
This film unfolds primarily through the eyes of Wiesler, a loyal soldier in the fight against subversion who simply refuses to play the political game of grace and favour, believing that a job well done is its own reward, but gradually comes to question both his own and the states motives as his exposure to Dreyman and his cultured friends forces him to take a long hard look at not just his motivations for doing what he does, but his entire life. Wiesler inhabits a drab world of tans and greys, wears the same clothes, and really comes across as a grey man, until gradually he undergoes changes, small at first, but changes nonetheless (witness his exchange with a small boy in an elevator, a simple act of self determination that warns us of more to come). As Wiesler, Ulrich Muhe is simply superb, coming across as a simple man who becomes aware of the changes within himself no faster than we do, as small acts of humanity and in a strange way kindness spiral out of control. That Wiesler is aware of his actions and the threat they pose not only to his future career but to his own safety is brilliantly portrayed by Muhe, as are the small changes in his personality that exposure to Dreyman brings about. That Muhe can convey a character undergoing a profound internal change simply by sitting at a desk wearing a pair of headphones is ample testament to the mans talent.
However, that is not to say that the rest of the cast are not equally superb. As Dreyman, Sebastian Koch is the polar opposite of Wiesler, a man of art and culture who inhabits a world of light, sound and friendship, as well as physical closeness, something that totally eludes Wiesler (except in one awkward but highly emotive scene involving Wieslers attempts at physical closeness with a prostitute in his equally grey apartment). Even Grubitz, wieslers superior, is given depth and weight by Ulrich Tukur, portraying him as a man who appears to know Wiesler inside out, a mean, petty and vindictive man who sees everything as another step on the promotional ladder.
Evoking its time and place simply brilliantly, this is a film that is unlike anything I have seen in an awfully long time. By utilizing this unsurpassed sense of place, and the feeling that everyone is spying on everyone else and the slightest act of subversion will lead only to destruction, it is a film that deals with broad themes, such as friendship, freedom of expression and the very nature of love by narrowing its focus onto a small group of people at a very definite point in time and in a very specific setting. Shades of The Conversation abound, but this is a much more thoughtful, focused and moving experience. And worth it for the final line, which managed to evoke humour and sadness at the same time.
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