Very good movie with very few flaws

Rating: 7/10 (18 September 2006)

When I watched the first trailer of "Das Leben der Anderen", I wasn't excited at all about this movie which isn't surprising since I consider myself everything but a fan of German movies about German past. Then I learned the rating my favorite critic gave it (5/5) and became curious about this movie. So a friend and I went to see it and I gotta admit, it's quite a decent movie! At least, far better than the (in my view) horribly overrated "Goodbye Lenin". The story is exciting and keeps you fascinated till the credits roll which isn't standard, these days anyway. The actors are all together nothing less than terrific and there lays the biggest quality of the movie. The camera and the score aren't very good, neither are the settings. And the story, as well-written it is, has it's black sheep. For example, and this is a big SPOILER
now so watch out, dear reader, the suicide towards the end. Yeah, it's dramatic and surprising and all that but too constructed and built to fit in the realistic and authentic world the film claims to portrait. Next big SPOILER
comes right away, when I find myself obligated to complain about the first hour of the movie when the tough and rough Stasi agent Wiesler almost immediately falls in love with the lifestyle of his target. There it appears just too obvious that the length became a problem so the director had to rush through this part.
The SPOILERS end here. In the end what's left is a nice movie about loss and love in a place ruled by observation and terror. It claims to be like "Full Metal Jacket" but has more of the modern tales by Zemeckis and Besson. Besides these difficulties in matters of identity, it remains a good drama!