Movie Moment: The Lives of Others

A couple of months back, maybe longer, my very good friend, Elana, recommended I see The Lives of Others. It is a German movie about... well... something. I actually had no idea what it was about, or maybe Elana told me, but I didn't remember it. At that time, I didn't get a chance to see the movie, and regretting it, I put it in my Netflix queue knowing the movie will come out on DVD.. and it did, and I finally got to see it tonight.

From the description on the DVD sleeve, it seemed like some kind of political drama about the Communist years in East Germany in the 80s. I wasn't expecting much, to be honest. Elana and I are great friends. But we don't have similar tastes in movies. She likes off-beat comedies made by directors like Wes Anderson, who I just don't get... or sometimes she wants to see movies that I would completely not expect of her, like Nacho Libre! But Elana is very passionate about politics, and censorship, and the government, and other things that make my head hurt. So like I said, I wasn't expecting much... and I actually fell asleep the first 20 minutes! LOL. I blame the fact that it's been a lazy day and the sun is now going to bed around 5pm, so I'm not exactly used to darkness so quickly.

But when I woke up, rewound back to the beginning, I sat through the entire movie, and was really taken by it. I won't give it away what was so special about this movie, but it is definitely one to watch. The beginning is slow, and a bit political (yawn!), but then it gets more human, more personal. Really a beautiful film. The ending warmed my heart.

Ok, won't give it away. Watch it! Even if you have no idea what it's about.

NB: The main actress is from another great German film, Mostly Martha! She is brill in this as well. And I must have her sunglasses in the bar scene. So cool!