The Lives of Others

I don't get really excited about many films lately. I see a lot of competent films and good films but not great ones. I guess the last two that really excited me were Crash and Paradise Now. Now there's The Lives of Others. I love this film.

At root, it's the story of the humanization of a security bureaucrat in the East German communist machinery, who is assigned to spy on a playwright and his mistress. Along the way he learns things that expand his personal universe: he reads poems by Brecht and listens to the playwright play a sonata on piano. He learns about corruption among his superiors. He learns about the freedom of artists compared to his own dreary existence.

The story also works as a suspenseful drama, the noose forever tightening. And it surprises us in its last half hour. Everything about this German film is first rate. Don't miss it.