Review of The Lives of Others (2006) by Michael C — 09 Apr 2012

I remember watching Katarina Witt in the 84 and 88 Olympics and thinking she's the enemy; or, at least her country was an enemy of the free West. After the Wall fell, she came to the US and did some ice skating shows. I thought it odd; how could this person from an intensely communist country embrace the freedoms we had; was she mocking us?

Then I read an article on how she was followed by the East German Secret Police (the Stasi). How they spied on their own citizens, friends, co-workers. They bugged their homes. She said they knew everytime someone would have sex. People feared the communist regime to the point that they would agree to turn on their neighbor.

This movie is the tells the story of spies and all we fear in the West. Though a fictional story, it is all too real. Set in 1984, a writer is the subject of a Stasi officer. Yet, because he's doesn't speak out against his government, he thinks he's not being watched. He sees his friends taken down by the Stasi and his sentiments begin to turn.

The Stasi officer, however, is moved by what he sees and hears of the writer and his actress girlfriend. Though methodical in his work, you wonder how can this officer not be impacted by his State-Endorsed vouyerism. That they could change someone's life, they elevated themselves to self-proclaimed gods laughing at how they could get a writer to stop writing without lifting a finger.

The quietness of this movie actually freaked me out. It was very well written, acted and shot. If you can handle a foreign language film (or if you know German), this movie informs you on life inside the Iron Curtain.