The Lives of Others

Rating: 9/10 (6 March 2010)

First I found out that this was in the book 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die, and then I found out it won the Best Foreign Language Oscar instead of Pan's Labyrinth, so I had to see why. Basically it is 1984, where in East Germany, Hauptmann Gerd Wiesler (BAFTA nominated Ulrich Mühe) is a skilled interrogator assigned by his superior Lt. Col. Oberstleutnant Anton Grubitz (Ulrich Tukur) to bug the house of playwright Georg Dreyman (Sebastian Koch) and his long term partner, actress Christa-Maria Sieland (Martina Gedeck). At first Grubitz disagrees that Georg is worth "watching", well, there are things that should be heard, but he still agrees to go along with it. It turns out though that Grubitz, forced at first to listen to them, becomes fascinated by the conversations of Georg and Christa-Maria, he doesn't want to be substituted. Soon though Georg becomes even more interesting when it turns out there is a reason to be listening, but Grubitz is the only one hearing it, so he is writing false information on the audio surveillance log, and checking it out himself. It becomes really intense when Georg does something really big, and Christa-Maria has to be interrogated by Grubitz, and soon after commits suicide for betrayal. In the end, Georg finds out about the surveillance ripping all the wires, and he finds Grubitz's logs, and in appreciation, his recent playwright work gets a thank you message written to Grubitz, which he of course buys. Also starring Thomas Thieme as Minister Bruno Hempf, Hans-Uwe Bauer as Paul Hauser, Volkmar Kleinert as Albert Jerska, Matthias Brenner as Karl Wallner, Charly Hübner as Udo and Herbert Knaup as Gregor Hessenstein. I will say I really wish that Pan's Labyrinth won the Oscar instead, but I can see some reasons why this film beat it, it is quite an engaging near comedic at times drama. It won the Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film of the Year, it won the BAFTA for Best Film Not in the English Language, and it was nominated for Best Director for Florian Henckel Von Donnersmarck, Best Film and Best Original Screenplay, and it was nominated the Golden Globe for Best Foreign Language Film. Very good!