A sad Doomocratic sonata...

Rating: 10/10 (17 November 2007)

The stated goal of the Stasi- "To know everything."- speaks for itself... because only a fool thinks he knows everything. "You should choose your words more carefully," Herr Hempf ominously warns a comrade who mentions blacklisting in THE LIVES OF OTHERS. But who watches The Watchers...? In a Doomocracy (wherein you're doomed if you do and doomed if you don't), that's the rub. (And I can't help but think about Harlan Ellison's "REPENT, HARLEQUIN!" SAID THE TICKTOCK MAN.") "Can anyone who has heard this music... really be a bad person?" Oh, yeah: one can Hear without Listening. Happens all the time (in this country, of late). "I'm your audience," herr Eavesdropper tells his subject at one point. The irony is that the voyeur, Wiesler, has become the Final Arbiter. THE LIVES OF OTHERS is a powerfully written eulogy for the buyers and sellers of souls. There.