What difference can one man make?

Rating: 8/10 (25 August 2007)

'The Lives of Others' is a beautiful film about the power and frailty of life and love. Set in East Germany about 5 or 6 years before the fall of the Berlin wall, it is the setting for a story that is at once both a chilling reminder of the depths to which unchecked governmental power can sink and at the same time a beacon of hope that humanity cannot be totally crushed even in the most repressive regimes.
Ulrich Mühe plays Hauptmann, a cold ruthlessly efficient Stasi (the East German secret police, an Orwellian organization if ever there was one) agent assigned to monitor Georg Dreyman, a prominent playwright who is suspected of harboring anti-government sentiments. Hauptmann sets about prying into every aspect of Dreyman's life looking for dirt, but initially there isn't really very much to find. However, as he continues to devote his life to watching Dreyman's he begins to be drawn in by the life and love of Dreyman and his wife (Martina Gedeck), a well-known actress who is the one actually hiding some secrets.
Mühe plays his role of a man gradually earning his redemption brilliantly, allowing his human compassion to show itself little by little, odd and disturbing at times and genuinely moving at others. Ultimately, although Mühe is the hunter and Dreyman the prey, you begin to realize in a sense that they are both the victims of a brutal, inhumane system.
The movie is, as you might expect, all in German. So if you don't speak the language be prepared to read subtitles the whole way thru, but the movie has such engaging, powerful performances that I wouldn't let that dissuade you. An excellent film.