ok, so im no film critic and im not going to attempt to write some beautifully constructed piece of pretentious prose about one of the best films that i have ever watched in my life, because, well, i would never be able to do it justice. however, after seeing 'the lives of others' by florian henckel von donnersmarck i just had to write a few words on how brilliant it was.
i feel truly gutted that i missed it at the cinema. i can remember vividly standing infront of the board at a cinema in the westend one night with a friend, going, "shall we go and watch that?" but then apparently they had heard mixed reviews about it, so we opted to go elsewhere and muck about instead. which was fun.
with hindsight i would have gone right in there and then and probably watched it 4 times in a row.
basic storyline is thus (for anyone who hasnt seen it yet)...
Ulrich Mühe plays a german stazi officer who works in intelligence, monitoring and watching for socialist defectors. but while carrying out surveillance on a writer and his actress girlfriend, he finds himself drawn into the lives of these peoples lives and ultimately goes against his original convictions by helping them escape from the secret police.
the whole film is beautifully shot. calm and underwhelming colour tones/palettes help to bring more of a sense of cold and place to the time of 1984 in which it was set. showing an unspectacular environment in which some genuinely unsettling and ominous events took place.
having been 6 at the time of the events occuring in this film, i can remember small parts of the happenings on the news but little else. i remember my mum telling me about the berlin wall, but not understanding very much of it and later at school, when the wall did finally come down it was all a little too much to comprehend.
this film really served to remind of what a difficult and painful time the people of berlin lived in. a world so similar and yet so different to what i know now, but one that i really would like to know more about.
all in all, the parts were played with real humanity and compassion. at times it left you speechless. but overall i was just so impressed by the way that a story could be told with so much subtlety to the point where the very dark undertones were actually made more poignant by how delicately they were handled. i finished watching the film, left with a sort of feeling of awe about what i had just seen but also with a comforting feeling that all it was trying to get across is that the human spirit is stronger than you might think, and what is most important and most rewarding in the world is to be live your life as a good person.
a lesson that we should all take note of i think.
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