Life in a dictatorship

Rating: 10/10 (17 March 2007)

Lives of Others - most certainly gives an excellent account of life in East Germany during the more than forty years of a communist dictatorship. It should be noted that the events shown in this film are still prevalent in a number of countries around the world and a similar movie could have been made with reference to Argentina, Chile, Uruguay and many more places. I resided in Venezuela during the iron fisted dictatorship of Marcos Perez Jimenez. Watching this film I kept thinking of the situations I personally witnessed. It was practically impossible to speak to anyone about anything, except maybe the weather forecast. Nothing to taxi drivers - waiters- hair dressers etc.. You even had to be extremely cautious with people you assumed were close friends. Just one word that wasn't acceptable and away you would go to one one the lovely prisons or if a foreigner out of the country on the next plane. The intellectual groups almost totally disappeared and were the very first to be silenced. We sure could use more pictures like this one that tell the real story.