The Lives of Others

on Mar 02 in Uncategorized by Administrator

See this movie. Not just because it one an Oscar (best foreign film), or it will teach you about fascism, or where the Patriot Act is poised to take us as a society, or how power is weilded, but because it will move and engage you on many levels, give you lots to talk about and make you stay up late thinking about what makes human beings so beautiful, so complex, so tragic and so wickedly fascinating.

The acting is stellar — there are at least three, maybe four brilliant individual performances — the protagonist, a mid-level secret police captain on the cusp of converting from his lifelong cause, a playwright/novelist who is simply a good man, an aging actress with a prescription drug problem, and two career communists.

The music is extraordinary, the camera work fantastic, the colors it’s shot in as expressive as the set design, which is vintage Eastern bloc of Europe, circa 1984, which is more like 1964 shabby. The plot is sensitively and intelligently developed, the direction deft and understated and the overall experience is on par with a really great novel.