The Lives of Others (2006)
Directed by Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck
In 1984 East Berlin, dedicated Stasi officer Gerd Wiesler begins spying on a famous playwright and his actress-lover Christa-Maria. Wiesler becomes unexpectedly sympathetic to the couple, and faces conflicting loyalties when his superior takes a liking to Christa-Maria.
4 connections found
View:
4 films that influenced The Lives of Others
What critics say influenced The Lives of Others
"The Lives of Others" has similarities to Francis Ford Coppola's 1974 classic "The Conversation" but with undercurrents that resound across an entire century of European political history.
A delicate cross between a Robert Ludlum political thriller and Francis Coppola's voyeuristic nightmare The Conversation, The Lives of Others, which swept the German Film Awards, is a fascinating look into the political and psychological underpinnings of communist control in the former German Democratic Republic.
The Lives of Others is the best surveillance movie since The Conversation.
Think of it as " The Conversation " behind the Iron Curtain.
Francis Coppola explored similar territory in 1972 in The Conversation, but The Lives of Others reminded me more of the work of the late, great Polish director Krzysztof Kieslowski, especially A Short Film About Love.
It feels like science fiction -- "Fahrenheit 451" or "THX-1138" or " Brazil ," with roots in Kafka and Orwell -- but the chilling and chilly dystopian world of writer-director Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck's "The Lives of Others" existed.
Grubitz asks Weisler to open a surveillance file on Georg Dreyman (Sebastian Koch, from "Gloomy Sunday"), a handsome playwright who's friendly to the regime but too intelligent to really be trusted.
The play is by Socialist writer Georg Dreyman (Sebastian Koch, "Gloomy Sunday," "Amen"), who Grubitz claims is their least subversive author, even liked by Hempf.