Film Of The Week: The Lives of Others

Great film. Quiet. Subtle. Powerful.

It covers the effect two men have on each other, in 1980's East Germany: One, a playwright, supposedly the only artist not under surveillance by the Stasi (the GDR's secret police) as he supports the socialist state. The other, a Stasi officer assigned to monitor him when higher-authorities decide that there must be something he's hiding. Slowly, the Stasi officer comes round to empathising with the artist, while the artist starts to act against the state. And a few twists and turns towards the ends.

The acting was understatedly powerful, the direction good (by which I mean unintrusive), the set-pieces authentic, in as much as they look like 1980's East German is supposed to look, not necessarily how it did look, I suspect.

Recommended if you're after something without guns, sex, swearing, hippity-hop music, or huge mega-stars in it. Oh, and subtitled.

Labels: movies

posted by Blakey UK @ 2:04 pm