Dollev

I’m not an avid visitor of the cinema, but Das Leben Der Anderen was one of those movies that i really wanted to see. German cinema has been growing from strength to strength this decade with movies like Good Bye Lenin, Das Wunder von Bern and Der Untergang. These three movies are about different periods of Germany’s history from 1945 until the fall of the Berlin wall.

Das Leben Der Andren is about the the last years of the DDR era. A Stasi agent is assigned to follow every move of a playwright. The irony is that both believe in the socialist system they live in. That changes when a friend of the playwright commits suicide after being mangled by the socialist powers that be. The playwright decides to rebel by writing an critical article about the high suicide rate in the DDR and smuggle it to West-Germany. The Stasi agent, who has sympathy for the playwright, decides not to report this to his superiors. At the very end he even hides evidence from his Stasi co-workers.

There is a lot more going on in this movie, but you have to see that for yourself. And you do need to see this movie! Like Der Untergang, Das Leben Der Anderen portraits the end of a German totalitarian regime. But where humanity is only a glimmer of hope in Der Untergang, in Das Leben Des Anderen humanity is the victor.

This movie also shows that you can achieve great dramatic effects without a humongous budget. There are no special effects, although the outdoor scenes were impressive. I have never seen so many Lada’s and Trabant’s driving around. But it is the quality of it all that makes Das Leben Der Anderen a fantastic movie. Everything is perfect: the story, the acting, the camera work.

At the end, both C. and i felt the need for applauding when the final credits rolled over the screen. Only C. had the balls to actually do it. The majority of the audience followed her example.

What a jewel of a movie.

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