The Lives of Others
The film begins, with a Stasi (East German Security agency) lesson on interrogation, involving the psychology of the detainee. If he is lying or not. The focus soon shifts to a drama theatre, where spies are keeping a close watch on a set of people. Such is the beginning of the film that engrosses the viewer to observe, what is going on, made to think. A very mature way of story telling.
Soon the plot unravels. An artist couple, Christa-Maria Sieland (theatre actress) and Georg Dreyman(writer) are under surveillance of Stasi spy Gerd Wiesler for their suspected radical views. It’s set up in East Germany at a time, when freedom of speech, expression did not exist even for the renowned artists. Dreyman’s director Albert Jerska, who is blacklisted by the state is one of them. Wiesler wires Dreyman’s apartment, hearing everything that goes in there from the attic. Wiesler reports to Grubitz. One of Grubitz’s main task is to make sure nothing is said and written against the establishment. Mnister Bruno Hempf wants to shut up people like Dreyman.
Director Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck, weaves a detailed tale using these characters and plots which do not look like fiction. The characters and the political content are neatly balanced, with both placed in the foreground, given equal importance.
As the story progresses Wiesler develops a soft corner for the couple during their vigilance. Without personally knowing them he actually feels for them as a human being. Dreyman wants to show the ugly face of the government to the world. Minister Bruno wants Christa-Maria Sieland too, using his political muscle and a threat to finish off her career.
Will Dreyman able to succeed in his moto? Will Wiesler be able to protect Dreyman? What will happen to the artist couple? Find out yourself 
The production values are of high standards. Cinematography is top notch. You are so sucked into the film that you do not notice the camera angles.
To my surprise this is Florian’s directorial debut. It is a great achievement for a debut film to win an Oscar, when it takes years even for some of the master film-makers. That too in the best foreign film category (2006), which is like the whole world being put up in a single category. Now wonder it took Florian 4 years to complete the script. The film has also won many prestigious awards such as Best foreign film at Independent spirit award and golden globes; audience award for Florian at Locarno to name a few of 47 awards that it has won.
We are fortunate that now foreign language films are getting theatrical release in our cities. Do ourselves a favour. Watch it!
Releasing in Mumbai & Pune on 29th Feb 2008
Screens : Inox (NAriman Point), Metro Adlabs and Sterling in town
Cinemax (Versova), Fun Republic , Adlabs (Andheri) in the suburbs
This would be followed by a staggered release across Chennai, Bangalore, Delhi, Kolkata & Hyderabad
www.thelivesofothers.in
http://imdb.com/title/tt0405094/
Tags: German
Anurag Kashyap
Abhay Deol
Dibakar Banerjee
Hansal Mehta
Khalid Mohamed
Kundan Shah
Anish Kuruvilla
Jaideep Verma
Manish Gupta
Navdeep Singh
Bhavani Iyer
D. Santosh
Onir
Ashvin Kumar
Ramu Ramanathan
Sudhir Mishra
Pankaj Advani
Revathy
Saurabh Shukla
Shilpa Shukla
Sujoy Ghosh
Suparn Verma
Santosh Sivan
Shashank Ghosh
Shivajee
Pavan Kaul
Partho Sen-Gupta
Prroshant Naryannan
Sam Langoria
Satish Kasetty
Great review of a GREAT movie … After I saw this movie, it makes me realise how pathetic BW movies are.
i love this movie too… saw it last year when it won the oscar… i’m waiting to catch it on the big screen; its worth it; the background score is one that will stay with you for some time to come… releasing in mumbai on the 29th of Feb.
will make space for this movie..for sure!!
Lovely..thanks you manjeet for this piece.one of those movies which have been wanting to watch..grat..29 th feb..ill be in one of the theaters for sure!!