"The Lives of Others"

Indeed, we picked up a friend and went to see The Lives of Others this afternoon. Then we had a simple dinner at a nearby restaurant. Merrie made it through just fine, and we all enjoyed both the film and the food.

The Lives of Others won the Academy Award this year as best foreigh-language film. It’s obvious why it won. The acting is sensitive, the story is simple yet unpredictable and the themes explored are universal and profound.

The setting is East Germany in the 1980s, and the main character is a Stasi agent tracking the loyalty of a writer. This is not an action movie, unless you consider the action going on just beneath the surface. It’s that action that kept my attention for all the movie’s 2 1/2 hours.

The look and feel of East Berlin in those days is exactingly and compellingly presented, and we get to see how a wide variety of personalities react to being closely monitored in a police state, Among the characters are a worker who follows the rules, a manipulative middle manager (a redundancy, since all middle managers have to be manipulative) and a demanding boss who abuses his power.

Ultimately, though, the movie touches on the biggest question: what gives meaning to life?