Great movie - just a notch down a complete masterpiece

Rating: 9/10 (25 April 2007)

The Lives of Others is a great, even excellent movie. I can't give it a 10 out of 10 rating, though. On the plus side, the director has a total command of the medium, he knows how to make a suspenseful, thoughtful, entertaining movie, that holds the interest of the audience even at a running time that exceeds 2 hours. What's more, the acting is uniformly extraordinary. Let's talk now about the main reason why I can't give the movie a 10. The emotional heart of the movie is when the Stasi officer in charge of spying the playwright and his girlfriend, a very tough and experienced individual who presumably has worked in many similar cases before, decides instead to protect them. Why he would do that, risking an end to his career and even a charge of treason?. Though his motivations are not altogether clear (he is an extremely reserved man), the change of heart seems to happen in part after listening the playwright playing a sonata on the piano after learning one of his colleagues committed suicide, after years of harassment by the government (he is also uneasy after finding out the Stasi is going for the playwright not for ideological reasons but in order that his beautiful girlfriend would then be available for the repellent minister of culture). As a metaphor from his newly found sensibility, he even steals a book from Brecht from the playwright's house, and is seen reading it. Is this believable? As much as the audience would be moved by a story of redemption, I think it's not. This is not a minor quibble, since this change of heart is really the main plot twist of the movie, on which all the film is build. The ending has a great closing line, but is also a bit difficult to accept. From what I know, few if any Stasi officers have expressed any remorse from what they did, and continue to defend their actions. That aside, this is a great film, from a young director that really knows how to make a movie that is both highly entertaining and thought provoking. And it has many great scenes that you vividly remember later. The best one: the young Stasi officer making a ill-timed Honecker joke in the cafeteria. It's a scene that's so good on so many levels.