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Cinema Plus
Worth a watch
Riveting The Lives of Others.
Films like these rarely make it to India. After all, most distributors still
consider us to be mass consumers of Anaconda and Godzilla. If you are the
kind who has been cribbing about the dumbing down of Hollywood, here's your
chance to witness a truly great film of our times. In fact, the best of best
films made in recent times.
Any film that has won an Oscar in the Best Foreign Film category is
certainly worth a watch (and make that a Rolex) in any case. The German
classic The Lives of Others is not just a great movie, it is an
overwhelming experience of history from a personal and socio-political point
of view.
Writer-director Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck's masterstroke lies in his
ability to give us a micro and a macro-level perspective of East Germany's
control over its people, the level of surveillance employed and how that
directly affects people separated by ideology. What begins as a personal
obsession for surveillance agent Weisler (Ulrich Muhe) helps him to see the
other side of ideology when he's employed by the secret police to keep a
watch on a rebel writer (Sebastian Koch) and his gorgeous lover (a lovely
Martina Gedeck). Isn't she lovely?
The film is as much about people as much as it is about politics, as much
about humanity as it is about voyeurism, and as much about history as it is
about a world dominated by technology today. If governments could go to the
extent they did in 1984, imagine what the system can do today with access to
the most advanced of technology.
You will never again take freedom of speech and expression for granted once
you see The Lives of Others. Though it sounds like a hardcore political film
(in fact, it is) the beauty of it is that you don't realise it much until
later when you've gone back home and it comes back to you in its entirety.
Because, while watching it, you only during the time you spend in the hall,
you only worry and care about the people in the film. You heart goes out to
agent as much as the unsuspecting people being watched. With these fantastic
actors and taut storytelling, the director manages to keep you riveted to
the action of everyday life in East Germany for a little over two hours.
When the film ended at the Chennai International Film Festival (it was the
opening film at the fest last year), the audience rose to applaud its final
moments. Now, let's hope people who pay for popcorn share that passion for
cinema. Or, we may never again find cinema like this reaching our theatres.
A must-watch. Unless you are happy letting sequels of Hollywood trash take
over our cinema halls.
The Lives Of Others
Genre: Drama
Director: Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck
Cast: Ulrich Muhe, Martina Gedeck, Sebastian Koch, Ulrich Tukur
Storyline: An East Berlin secret police agent assigned to spy on a rebel writer and his lover gets sucked into their lives.
Bottomline: Heartwarming insight into German history
SUDHISH KAMATH
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