Behind Closed Doors (The Lives Of Others review)

The Lives Of Others

* * * *

I had never seen a German film until The Lives Of Others, and I can easily say that great films can come from outside Hollywood. This film takes place in East Germany in 1984 before the fall of the Berlin Wall. The secret police monitor almost everyone by wiring their homes and spying on everything they say and do. A man, a loyal socialist writer is starts being monitored, but things slowly change as Wiesler (Ulrich Muhe), the agent in charge of carrying out the mission, becomes emotionally involved in the case. A woman, the writer’s girlfriend Christa-Maria (Martina Gedeck) is the main reason for causing the agent’s change of heart (you’ll know what I mean by change of heart when you see the movie). It isn’t clearly stated, but through instinct one can infer that the agent liked the woman, and therefore the writer too. All in all while the mission is being carried out, to find incriminating evidence on the writer Georg Dreyman (Sebastian Koch), things take a turn and the ending is quite a surprise.

I’m glad I watched this film, it doesn’t move very fast, in fact it is quite long, but worth every bit of it. At first I wondered if it was just that I didn’t speak any German, but then I realized that this film is one of those that requires your undivided attention. Everything in the end makes sense. The fact that it’s two hours long, and a foreign film might keep people from seeing this. Believe me this is a movie that not only has a gripping story, but provides a glimpse of the history of a country, one we are all too familiar with in terms of global affairs. That was perhaps one of my favorite parts of this film. The blending of historical facts with the story of a couple of people works amazingly well for a foreign film. I didn’t have trouble following anything, and found this films extremely fascinating.

What really did it for me in this film was the ending. I loved the touch at the end when agent Wiesler, several years after his last mission, buys Georg Dreyman’s latest book Sonata For A Good Man (you’ll know what I mean when you see the film). It was a bittersweet kind of ending, but delightful nonetheless.

I don’t know a lot of the German cinema, but if their films are half as good as The Lives Of Others, then I don’t doubt they will perhaps one day be a force to be reckoned with in the world of cinema. I can’t wait to explore more foreign films out there, but for now I highly recommend this film. It has a bit of nudity in it, but it’s brief, and doesn’t really make a big enough impression to draw one away from this film. This film is fascinating, strange, touching, and very original. This is my favorite foreign film so far, and with good reason since it picked up an Academy Award for Best Foreign Film back in 2007.