Sonata for a Good Man

Rating: 10/10 (9 March 2007)

This film is set in the Orlwellian year of 1984 in the old German Democratic Republic of what was known as East Berlin. The Stasi are the "Shield and the Sword" of the ruling party of this soviet bloc nation, a secret police force of 100,000 that subjugates another 300,000 to spy for them. This totalitarian system is based on a need to know everything about the countries populace of 16 million. Everything is meticulously documented. Big Brother keeps tabs on any it deems worthy of investigation. Captain Gerd Wiesler (Ulrich Mühe) is a button-down bureaucratic establishmentarian who works as a Stasi interrogator and as an instructor in the school for Stasi. His old schoolmate Lt. Col Grubitz (Ulrich Tukur) is now his immediate superior. In an attempt to further his career, Grubitz wants to impress Cultural Minister Bruno Hempf (Thomas Thieme) and orders Wiesler to set up an elaborate eavesdropping stakeout to gather information on playwright George Dreyman (Sebastian Koch). Dreyman is a playwright loyal to the party but most his contemporaries have not been including his favorite director Albert Jerska (Volkmar Leinert) who has been blacklisted. Dreyman's live-in girlfriend is the popular stage actress Christina- Maria Sieland (Martina Gedeck) who is also the object of amorous affection from the sinister, shades of gestapo-like Hemph. This is no ordinary spy thriller. Writer/director Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck in his feature film debut gives the screen this wonderfully compelling story of life behind the Iron Curtain in the years leading to the 1989 fall of the Berlin Wall and continues into 1991 after the reunification of Germany. Wonderful camera work from cinematographer Hagen Bogdanski enhances the stark realism of this film. This is the Academy Award winning Best Foreign Language Film of 2006. I had to see this since it beat out the highly favored Pan's Labyrinth for the Oscar. It's evident to me that Lives of Others is the superior film and the Academy got it right. This film flows so smoothly and your eyes are constantly on every movement on the screen that it's hard to believe you are reading subtitles too. Gabriel Yared's original composition for the film "Sonata for a Good Man" is a pivotal piece of it's storyline. I can't help but give this film my highest rating of a 10 out of 10 and I would highly recommend it.