Sonata for a Good Man

Rating: 9/10 (13 May 2008)

In 1984, in East Germany, the popular actress addicted in pills Christa-Maria Sieland (Martina Gedeck) becomes the pivot of an investigation of the successful writer and her boyfriend and mate Georg Dreyman (Sebastian Koch) by the secret police. The Minister of Culture Bruno Hempf (Thomas Thieme) and former lover of Christa orders the ambitious Chief of Police Anton Grubitz (Ulrich Tukur) to find evidences that Georg is not loyal to the party to get rid off him and stay with Christa, and the efficient agent Gerd Wiesler (Ulrich Mühe) is assigned to conduct surveillance on Georg's apartment. Wiesler does not find any evidence that could compromise Georg, until the day of his blacklisted friend and director Albert Jerska (Volkmar Kleinert) commits suicide. Georg decides to write an anonymous article to Der Spiegel about the hidden numbers of suicides in East Germany. However, Wiesler becomes fascinated with the lives and thoughts of George and Christa and covers his findings from his superiors.
"Das Leben der Anderen" is another powerful German movie, showing the repressing and corrupted system supported by fear in East Germany in times of Cold War. This movie is practically perfect: the screenplay and story are engaging, disclosing a triangle of love that causes a political surveillance of an innocent man based on several characters that are perfectly developed. The pace is neither slow nor fast but very adequate, and uses an awesome cinematography. Therefore the work of the director and writer Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck is outstanding. The performances are top-notch, but the actor Ulrich Mühe is amazingly perfect, deserving an Oscar, and Martina Gedeck gives a great credibility to her abused character. I usually watch many movies , but "Das Leben der Anderen" is certainly among the best recent movies I have seen, if not the best. My vote is nine.
Title (Brazil): "A Vida dos Outros" ("The Life of the Others")