Sunday, February 14, 2010

#50 The Lives Of Others: Bad men who put people in prison

2006. dir. Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck, starring Ulrich Mühe, Sebastian Koch, Martina Gedeck, Ulrich Tukur. German with subtitles.

Seen it before? No.

It's 1984 in East Germany. Communists are still in charge. The Stasi, which is the secret police, has a network of spies and informants to keep track of enemies of the state and subversive thoughts. This guy Wiesler (Ulrich Mühe) gets assigned to spy on a playwright (Sebastian Koch) but it's all just a ruse to get the guy out of the way for the Stasi commander to move in on the guy's girlfriend (Martina Gedeck) So Wiesler begins to sympathize with the writer, and it starts to interfere with his work.

I've always said that the easiest thing in the world is to make a movie about how bad the Nazis were. The second easiest thing is making a movie about how bad the Communists were. Yes, we get it, it's a oppressive regime, it's a madhouse, damn you all to hell, etc. The most interesting part is what happens after the end. Spoiler: the Berlin Wall falls in 1989.

Position on the list: 56
You pervert: And then they presumably had intercourse.

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