A Human Story

Rating: 9/10 (21 May 2011)

I'm not going to lie. I knew little about what happened after WWII in Germany. All I knew was that Germany was split in half, the West was made into a democracy, while the East was strictly Communist. And in 1989, the Berlin Wall came down, signifying the reconstruction of one unified German state.
"The Lives of Others" begins near the end of the conflict, where the East has maintained a very strict gripping on what the people are to read or write (just as China and Russia had.) The opening scene, one of the best intro's to a movie I have seen this decade, tells us of how the Stasi, the secret police of the East Germany, which is referred to in the film as the German Democratic Republic, obtain information about escapees (to the West) not by brutally, but by petty tortures.
The opening sets the stage for what to expect throughout the movie, or you would think. Without giving any of it away, this movie never plays out in a formuliac manner. Many could inherently link this movie with "The Conversation," the 1974 movie by Francis Ford Coppola, but this movie far surpasses even that one.
See for yourself why this movie is in the top 100 (a rare accomplishment for a foreign film.) If you are not moved by the end, check your pulse.