Movie #174: The Lives of Others

Movie #: 174
Movie Title: The Lives of Others
Year Released: 2006

Director: Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck
Notable Cast: Ulrich Mühe, Sebastian Koch, Martina Gedeck, Ulrich Tukur, Thomas Thieme, Hans-Uwe Bauer

Short Description: In 1984 East Berlin, an agent of the secret police, conducting surveillance on a writer and his lover, finds himself becoming increasingly absorbed by their lives. (IMDB.com)


Rank on the Top 100 Lists (as of 1/7/2013)

AFI.com: N/A
IMDB.com: #61
Ranker.com: N/A
Lifed.com: N/A
Empire.com: N/A
FilmCrave.com: N/A
FlickChart.com: N/A



Date Watched: 2/8/2016

Grade: 3 out of 5 (Good)

Rationale: Even though it was late at night and I knew I wouldn’t be able to finish until close to 1pm on a work night, there was something so compelling about The Lives of Others that I just had to finish it that night. It’s always a good feeling when you’re that engaged in a movie. As I’ve thought with many others that have received “Good” grades from me, this wouldn’t be one that would ever jump to mind as a top 100 all time movie, but it was absolutely worth watching once. My only bit of criticism is that Ulrich Mühe’s character Wiesler is presented right off the bat as a hard-ass interrogator for the Stasi in communist East Berlin and either it was lost in translation or went over my head, but I couldn’t figure out what exactly compelled him about the couple he was spying on to forgo his duty by forging documents and lying about his findings. They were interesting, but not enough to risk the wrath of the East Berlin government.