A great film that reveals a deep understanding of Communist East Germany

Rating: 10/10 (16 September 2007)

The Lives of Others. Bla Bla Bla. What a dull and boring title for one of the best films I've ever seen. I fully expected to be sleeping within minutes of the opening seen. Plus, it's a READER. I need to concentrate subtitles! I was drawn to this rental by a recommendation in Time magazine. Time implored it's readers to see this German played and directed film before the English rendition arrived and all but crushed the original. If your young bones had not yet arrived before the collapse of the Berlin Wall then the "Cold War" may be little more than a comment in a textbook, to you. You and we who lived during the Dr. Strangelove times will be amazed at this story of the Communist Red Machine that strangled its own flesh and blood and the humanity of some of its operators. Think of Brazil meets Gorky Park and you have the start of Lives of Others.