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The Lives of Others is a masterfully plotted historical and fictional drama that never bores its audience with mediocre side plots that add nothing of substance. Instead, it intricately examines a Stasi investigator's own humanity, and suggests some rays of hope still shone on their own in the dark recesses of East Berlin.
Hauptmann Wiesler is assigned to eavesdrop on a suspected opposer of the state's political party, yet he slowly shows more and more humanistic tendencies, and forms a strange protective fascination of this couple's lives. Like Valkyrie displayed an uprising within a gestating dictatorship, Florian Henckel Von Donnersmarck genuinely displays a social revolution in the making. Berlin is still separated by the Wall, but Germany's finest minds show no resolve to stop in their tracks, until the fabric of history itself is changed.
The Lives of Others could be argued as being The Conversation of the 21st century, despite its setting being a little over a decade after the film's release. Both films, of course, involve extensive surveillance procedures, but they also are both conspiracy features. Although this film is somewhat more politically driven than the latter, the fascinations between observer and subject make some truly classic and suspenseful plot lines. The Lives of Others, however, feels much more straightforward and less schizophrenic than Coppola's paranoia masterpiece. The authentic touch that the director places on the smallest parts of this film make it feel much more real, allowing for an easier conveyance of its human emotions to the audience. Harry Caul felt psychologically distant from the audience, and it works for that film's tone. Hauptmann shows a much more human conscience, invoking a much more modern and realistic sense into the character.
In short, The Lives of Others is one of the most fascinating historical dramas I've ever seen. It doesn't rely on tear-jerking moments to keep the audience entangled in its nightmarish web of bureaucracy, but rather an unnerving suspense of living in a police state. Where anyone can be legally monitored and bugged by the government without the subject's knowledge. Where Gorbachev is about to be elected leader of the Soviet state. It's an Orwellian-like society that would send an unnerving feeling if it was still in place today. This film perfectly captures that paranoid feeling that many people of the time caught from the political climate of the society. A riveting political thriller that pleases from start to finish, never once faltering in my opinion.