DAS LEBEN DER ANDEREN

THE LIVES OF OTHERS is the German Oscar entry for foreign language feature. It's a remarkable film, set in 1985 East Berlin before the fall of the wall. The story centers on a wiretapper who is assigned to track a writer suspected of being a dissident. The story conjures up many parallels to THE CONVERSATION, the wonderful and dark film by Coppola, although at times it's practically the opposite of that film. LIVES is a great example of the Heisenberg principal, where the observer cannot help but become involved in the lives of his subjects. The acting is top-notch, and the characters are all complex; the good guys aren't really that great, and the bad guys sometimes show more humanity than their counterparts. I highly recommend it.