the lives of others

Rating: 9/10 (21 August 2016)

In the stifling atmosphere of communism where even the most private thoughts are read every seconds, a Stasi official named Weiseler weighs his humanitarian feeling over his duty to the government and learns the meaning of love , sacrifice etc. This movie called "The Lives of Others" shows us that life is impossible to understand or judge unless looked at it from its own point. The movie's first opening scene shows us Weiseler's unwavering loyalty towards the party and he suspects Georg Dreyman, a writer, of sedition when he is thought to be an ideal citizen by many others. Henceforth a secret operation is ordered by the minister of culture at Dreyman's house with Weiseler in charge of it. From that point he starts to intervene in the lives of Dreyman and his girlfriend Chirsta Maria Seiland and gets to know every personal thing in their lives. He eventually comes to know that the cultural minister is nothing but a competitor of Dreyman and misuses his power to get Christa. When he comes to know that the communist party head (the cultural minister) behaves like a bourgeois and moulds the communist rules according to his whims and fancies, his loyalty which was entirely directed towards the government becomes divided and he empathizes with the lives of Dreyman and Christa Maria Seiland. He becomes a soft- hearted man and tries to save them at every possible opportunity. He does not report that Dreyman has written an article about the movie director, Jerska's death which is prohibited by the law. He also removes the typewriter from under the door sill which would have been a concrete proof that Dreyman is anti-national and he would have punished or killed. After a few years, the communist regime breaks up and he no longer is a stasi official, but a commoner. I liked the last part when he goes to the bookstore to buy a book by Georg Dreyman and the owner asks "Should I pack it?" He tells "No, It is for me." which has double meanings. One is that he bought the book for himself, another is that the book was written by Dreyman about him, the Stasi official who saved his life.