Movies like this one are all too rare..

Rating: 10/10 (3 February 2007)

I was fortunate enough to see "Das Leben Der Anderen" in April last year in Berlin when it was on general German cinematic release. As I find the historical topic of the Stasi and the former country, the DDR (GDR) in general of much interest and fascination, I visited many of the sites mentioned in the film, most notably the former Stasi prison, Neuenschönhausen, now been converted to a museum. I believe the sheer amount of cruelty and brutality the Stasi expelled on its prisoners to be comparable to that of Nazi Germany. The fact of the matter is that today, German people do not talk about the former east block country, in fact, they'd rather regard it more as a joke, laughing about "Trabant" cars or Spreewaldgurken, rather than taking it seriously. This film sparked a breath of fresh air and brought back the publicity and respect former East German political prisoners deserve, rather than being laughed at and humoured by the general media as they have done in the past.
To date I've watched this spectacular film five times and have recommended it to dozens of people, it is, in my humble opinion, one of the finest works to come out of German cinema so far in the twenty first century, if not cinema in general. The films actors and cinematography remind us as how much emotional power the medium itself can have on its audience. This film was so good that when the credits rolled up at the end, not one person out of an audience of 250+ people stirred or made a noise. We were that numbed.
I was very pleasantly surprised to see that DLDA is up for Oscar nomination. Perhaps the academy is not as biased towards Hollywood as I previously thought. Many of my American friends will not get the opportunity to see this film as it is only on "limited" release over in the US as of this month. In my experience "limited" means that only a very small minority of independent theatres in large cities will carry the film. It is a similar matter here in the UK, although movie theatres are not overtly controlled or monopolised by Hollywood studios as they are in the US.
Admittedly, I haven't really talked in very much detail about the film in question in the review, however, I urge you to watch it. It is gradually climbing the IMDb Top 100 after all. :)