The Lives of Others

The Lives of Others is a beautiful and sad look at life under the watchful eye of the Stasi in East Germany.

Many novelists, journalists and playwrights were monitored by the Stasi, to check they weren't writing any propaganda material for the anti-government movement.  One particular playwright Georg Dreyman (played wonderfully by Sebastian Koch) and his actress girlfriend Christa-Maria Sieland (played by Martina Gedeck) are monitored by Stasi operative Hauptman Gerd Wiesler (the last role played by the late actor Ulriche Muhe).

Wiesler gets more and more involved in his subjects lives, the arguments, the intricacies of their love, their need to live in a free Germany but towing the line to keep their lives.  When more and more of their peers start to commit suicide, they feel the noose tightening around their necks.   Wiesler knows all the goings in in the couple's lives, and begins to become invested in their safety, a direct violation of his role in the operation.

Dreyman and a couple of his peers decide to write a damning article of the government and get it across the border to be released on the other side of the new defunct Berlin Wall.  All news outlets pick up this story and Wiesler and his team begin to feel the strain and must find the culprit as soon as possible.  Wiesler knowing all this already, decides to take matters into his own hands and protect his new 'friends'.

This story is both bleak and beautiful.  Well acted by all the cast, its like a huge ball rolling slowly towards you but you know you can never out run it.  I came away feeling so sad that many had to live like this not so long ago, but so heartened by the efforts of a few on both sides of the line to try and life better for all.

The Lives of Others is a truly wonderful film and lasting legacy to Ulriche Muhe, who died soon after it won the Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film award in 2006.