Review of The Lives of Others (2006) by Ricok. — 03 Dec 2006
Scott Foundas of LA Weekly got it all wrong. Poor dogmatic man. In Germany, this film was criticized for being too hard on the Stasi secret police actually. I do not want to go on about the misguided comparison of the Stasi to the Gestapo.
Anyway, the film is set in the 1980s when the socialist system was about to dissolve and the Stasi exercised less power over people, especially artists, than in the years before. The kind of GDR the film portrays is more like the stalinist communism of the 1950s.
While in the years after it was still a totalitarian system, people took their freedoms and started to care less about the overpowering presence of the state. So, this film painting the Stasi as omnipresent and powerful got it wrong and the reviewer Foundas got the film all wrong, calling it revisionist.
He should get his facts right before he starts reviewing European films. I wonder why Americans can be so terribly political (and p.c.!) when it comes to reviewing films that are about people, really.
Even had it been a Gestapo officer, I would be interested in his feelings, private life etc.
This review of The Lives of Others (2006) was written by Ricok. on 03 Dec 2006.
The Lives of Others has generally received very positive reviews.
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