A strong, moving drama

Rating: 10/10 (2 April 2008)

To its credit, this film has the academy award for the best foreign film and thats for a very good reason.
"The lives of others" is a movie with a soul in it. No stunning VFX, uncanny camera angles, exotic locations, big sets or stunts. No! This is straight forward story telling at its best.
Performances by all actors, especially by Ulrich Muhe are very good. The color theme, gives a very cold feel and sets a very apt mood. Also, the cubical buildings that serve as locations, lend a feel of trapping and strict system. The story is set in the socialist East Germany where any kind of support for anti-communist ideas is strictly prohibited. In this set up, a loving couple, a play write(Sebastian Koch) and an aspiring actress(Martina Gedeck) come under surveillance for the writer's radical ideas. They unknowingly continue to live in a wired house. On th other end of the wires is an agent(Ulrich) who alertly listens to every word. The story from here on is about the impact the lives of this couple has on the agent.
This is a drama, one of the best in the genre and is a treat for people looking for emotional content.