Review: The Lives of Others



Set in East Berlin in the early 80s, wherein a playwright (Sebastian Koch) and his actress girlfriend (Martina Gedeck) are to be monitored by Stasi (the secret police) master interrogator Ulrich Muhe, a reserved sort, who heads up a surveillance operation, suspecting that the playwright isn’t the good socialist he claims to be and hoping to get the dirt on him. However, the more he hears, the deeper he becomes engrossed in these people’s lives (hence the title) and generally disillusioned about what he is doing. Thomas Thieme plays a minister with the hots for Gedeck, distrust of Koch, and higher ambitions for himself.

 

2006 Oscar winner for Best Foreign film, this German film from debutante director Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck (now say that ten times fast!) suffers from “Rear Window” syndrome. Just like in that overrated film, we are forced to watch some guy watching someone else, or in this case, listen to someone else (another overrated film, “The Conversation” comes to mind). And also like said overrated film, neither the watcher/listener nor his subject(s) happen to be terribly interesting (Was I supposed to connect with Muhe because he was a lonely man? Hey, I live a pretty solitary existence too, but I ain’t at the stage where I’m calling up hookers like this guy does…well, not yet anyway…) At least “Rear Window” had Jimmy Stewart, the only interesting person in this film is the blacklisted theatre director friend of Koch’s, played by Volkmar Kleinert, and he’s not really a major part of the film.

 

It’s well-made for what it is (though Muhe’s behaviour in the last reel isn’t quite plausibly conveyed), but what it is simply didn’t interest or engage me, despite Muhe’s fine work in the lead. Scripted by the director, movies about voyeurs simply don’t interest me, I’m afraid. Perhaps the film will mean more to Germans (I’m not against foreign-language films in the slightest, but not so much the arthouse stuff), and it sure is popular with the high-brow crowd. I was left cold.

 

Rating: C+

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Review: Hellraiser (2022)

Recovering junkie Odessa A’zion accompanies scuzzy boyfriend Drew Starkey on a break-in where all they find is a weird puzzle box. A’zion later opens the box and after some weird shit happens, A’zion and Starkey figure it might be a good idea to learn more about this messed up trinket. Goran Visnjic plays a millionaire who possessed the box before our protagonist nicked it.   Is there any point in remaking/rebooting “Hellraiser” when the 1987 adaptation of Clive Barker’s original text was written and directed by Barker himself? And is considered a horror classic? On evidence here, absolutely not. Directed by David Bruckner ( “The Signal” ) and scripted by Ben Collins ( “The Night House” ) and Luke Piotrowski (ditto) this is an entirely tedious affair. I took a long time to get on board with the 1987 “Hellraiser” , I have to admit. It was wildly imaginative and original, like a nightmare transplanted on to film. However, the characters were stone cold and left me similarly chilly t
Read more

Review: Boyka: Undisputed

Yuri Boyka (Scott Adkins) is out of prison and fighting for a living, with ambitions for the ‘Most Complete Fighter’ to make a real name for himself. However, after an opponent dies during a fight, the deeply religious Boyka starts to have a crisis of conscience. He tries to make amends with the man’s widow, which eventually pits him against a local gangster (Alon Moni Aboutboul, quite good). Anything with Scott Adkins will generally get me interested, and although this series peaked with the superlative “Undisputed II: Last Man Standing” , this 2017 film from director Todor Chapkanov (director of the SyFy movies “Copperhead” and “Ghost Town” ) is no slouch in a series yet to deliver anything less than solid entertainment. Producer Isaac Florentine is missed in the director’s chair, but Chapkanov gives us at the very least the series’ most dramatically ambitious entry, as Adkins’ ‘most complete fighter’ Yuri Boyka continues on his journey to redemption here. In this one, the
Read more

Review: Ninja 2: Shadow of a Tear

Scott Adkins is once again Casey, an American proponent of the martial art of Ninjutsu. When Casey’s pregnant Japanese wife (Mika Hijii) is rubbed out, he’s on a vengeance mission to find her killers. A friendly face, Nakabara (Kane Kosugi) turns up at the funeral, and suggests Casey come to Thailand to deal with his grief in another country. Casey initially declines, but eventually takes Nakabara up on his offer. However, his wife’s murder still haunts Casey, and with intel supplied by Nakabara, the trail eventually leads Casey to a brutal drug baron named Goro (Shun Sugata).   I was extremely disappointed with the first “Ninja” , but had heard that this 2013 sequel from director Isaac Florentine ( “Undisputed II: Last Man Standing” , “Undisputed III: Redemption” , “Ninja” ) was a damn near masterpiece of the martial-arts action movie genre. Having now finally gotten my hot little hands on it, I’d say the hype is a bit much, but this is unquestionably a much better film than the f
Read more