A more balanced view of the world?

Rating: 9/10 (11 May 2007)

no doubt a brilliant movie - well composed, great camera work, extremely well structured, top-notch actors, flawless plot. a film with distinction, one that makes you THINK and recount the plot in your head well after you get out of your local cinema. i wonder though, being from the eastern block myself, how those from the east really felt about it. ideologies aside, is socialism (communism was an ideology, socialism was the system) all about the paranoia state that focuses so heavily on the spy apparatus of the stasi? what about that camaraderie that perhaps that very need fostered? a youth that didn't just care about play stations and chat rooms but believed they were a part of that country's future? what about the other perhaps, brighter side of the 'eastern' story? obviously a topic that does not cater well to the western minds, fed by the ubiquitous media of that 'dark, grim east' and the need to defeat their long standing enemy. how about a more balanced view of the world? who would have the guts and/or the mind open enough to take it on? one final thought - if a system, such as communism/socialism managed to 'conquer' over a quarter of the world, there must have been something appealing in it to begin with. think about it...