The Lives Of Others on DVD (2006)

A customer from Ealing , 22/11/2007

This had such a downbeat and tedious beginning I just gave up after 15 minutes and tried to do something more useful with my life.

  237 out of 264 people found this review helpful

Read all reviews

Billy from Edinburgh, Scotland [Highly rated reviewer] , 12/05/2007

I was nine years old when the Berlin Wall came down. I remember seeing all of the news broadcasts on the television marking the historic event and listening to the intense relief and happiness of the people as they freely walked from one side of their once great, unified country to the other. I remember that even here, in Scotland, my parents and many other people were overjoyed at such a momentous occasion, at the wonderful victory that freedom and liberty had achieved.

There are some other memories I have of films I would watch in the next few years, concerning the time spent by those behind the Wall. Of the restrictive regime in East Germany, the totalitarian government’s invasion of personal privacy, the lengths gone to by regular people to escape their homeland. I didn’t always understand how a modern day, European country could be so wrong in its thinking and treatment of its people, but I was young.

Now, in ‘The Lives of Others’, we are invited back to the 1980’s, to East Berlin, where the GDR is still fully operational and the Stasi are efficiently silencing every last dissident voice and strangling what’s left of any artistic expression within the republic. We get to see first hand as top interrogator, Gerd Wiesler is assigned - on a decision made by the genitals of a horny minister - to carry out surveillance on a prominent playwright. Despite the writer, Dreyman, never having spoken out against the regime, Wiesler is pressured to find out damning information that will lead to his arrest and therefore the emancipation of his girlfriend and actress, Christa-Maria Sieland.

Like Animal Farm and 1984, and many other stories concerning Communist or Socialist practices, we are embroiled in a story that shows the immediate inadequacies and impossibility of the system. Always, the desire for good is shouted from the rooftops, whilst reality bears down in the form of greedy, lustful, power-hungry men who use the tactics of fear and repression for their own gains. Wiesler slowly starts to realise this fact, questioning his own morals and his part in the whole demonising machine, and the story unfolds as he begins to make his own decisions again.

To say that ‘The Lives Of Others’ is therefore a tale of hope and spirit, that it encourages the humanity and soul of a person to rise above hardship, that it reminds us of our duty to ourselves and to each other in keeping us all safe and free from those who would seek to control us; this would be an understatement. It is all that and so much more, and for those of us who were not there, who did not witness these events and who could not imagine the extent of which a life could be subverted and controlled, it serves as a timely reminder, an honest look into a period and a place whose impact is still being felt throughout the world; it’s true legacy not yet entirely exposed.

This is a film of great import and resonance, a film that speaks to the heart of all of us, a film which deals with universal issues that all of mankind can identify with, and it is achieved through great empathy, intelligence, tension, subtlety, style and care. We are being shown a world which we would never want to live in, but a world which nevertheless did exist.

It is the power that the film has to let you explore this dark, demoralised world and yet still come away with a great feeling of hope and expectant optimism, that will stay with you long after you have left the theatre. This is essential cinema for all.

  180 out of 184 people found this review helpful

Read all reviews

ThomasKus from Gloucester [Highly rated reviewer] , 12/04/2007

As someone who grew up in the East Germany depicted in this film I have of course two advantages - the language and the personal experience. The Lives of Others deals with a topic that had infiltrated East German lives to a still unknown degree and it is to the credit of the film makers that they have tackled this in a remarkable way. The story centers around a Stasi officer who is put on the trail of a writer and becomes gradually absorbed with their lives eventually turning from interrogator to protector. The script is tight, the atmosphere both bleak and electric, the acting superb and the sets full of accurate details that dive this film an air of real authenticity. That there is dramatic overexpression of certain aspects of Stasi working is inevitable but does make the film a little unbelievable at times. It is worth remembering that the director is a (very young) West German who had no personal experience of living in East Germany and the film sometimes feels like expressing how West Germans imagined life in East Germany. However, this is perhaps not a bad thing as it makes the film more accessible to Western audiences and I have no doubts that the Oscar was well deserved. It is worth watching for the insights into both East German state and intellectual thinking of the 1980s and the story itself is gripping enough for two hours of good cinema.

  120 out of 122 people found this review helpful

Read all reviews

PeterSays from Romsey [Highly rated reviewer] , 15/04/2007

I don't want to tell any secrets. I don't want to spoil your enjoyment of this wonderful film by informing you about events in a drama that will keep your eyes glued to the screen and your attention wrapped.

But it won't be giving too much away to say this film concentrates on the Stasi, the East German secret police, and the repressive regime it protected and fostered. The Stasi files are now open and can be viewed by all, spy and citizen alike, and this film is part of the German people's debate about what that past means now.

I think I can also tell you that the central plot set against this oppressive backdrop is optimistic. That the human spirit can never be totally crushed, that good cannot be extinguished by evil. When the stage play that started the film is revisited and reprised, tears came to my eyes.

To my surprise, this was not the end of the film. Hadn't everything been said? Going through the Stasi files on the film's story may be cathartic for the East Germans but just pointless repetition for the rest of us? Not really. The Berlin Wall had fallen, capitalism had triumphed, there were beggars on the street and the buildings were plastered with graffiti by the time this film reached its conclusion.

As the credits rolled, I skipped off to the cinema's loo. This graffito was scrawled on the wall: '[economic] growth for the sake of growth is the logic of the cancer cell'. Capitalism shouldn't get smug; all regimes have the ability to repress.

  78 out of 84 people found this review helpful

Read all reviews

lo from Staines [Highly rated reviewer] , 19/01/2008

No Comment. Must have ordered this film by mistake.

  27 out of 32 people found this review helpful

Read all highest rated reviews

misskek from Ashton-Under-Lyne , 11/02/2008

When I first started watching this film I was a bit disappointed as it is all in German with subtitles but you soon forget that when you become enthralled in the plot. A goodnatured writer and his girlfriend live together before the fall of the berlin wall.Harrassed by the Stazi, the writer is oblivious to the fact that he is being watched by jealous eyes.His girlfriend is an actress and has a drug problem as she is pursued and sexually harrassed by a sStazi member.Various friends decide to get together and wriite an article anonymously regarding how many people had died by committing suicide,unbeknown to them that their every word is being listened to. The listener takes pity on them and falsifies documents without them knowing, he is a fanmof the plays and the girlfriend.The ending is really good but i willnot say any more as it will spoil it. It is a splendid film and it will keep you riveted.

  2 out of 2 people found this review helpful

Read all highest rated reviews