Review of The Lives of Others

"The life of others" reminds me of another German film "Last Five Days" of Percy Adlon (1982) about an anti Nazi resistance of a group of German high school youth. Both films are characterized by a sombre, sober, thrifty manner of filming and playing (especially of Ulrich Mühe in the role of a secret service agent Wiesler). The main impression which it transfers is fragility, helplessness and defenselessness of a human person in the face of the cruel and merciless state repression machine. Nevertheless the man persists to resist. This sentiment which the film produces is the main reason of its attraction. It is easy to proof. Imagine that the entire film would consist of a narration of the dissidents' somewhat schoolboy's clandestinely, adventures and political declarations. Probably the auditory would have difficulty to stay till the end of that film. I have another association, on that subject, with a somewhat extraordinary film "Funny games" (1997) of another Germanic author, the Austrian Michael Haneke. In this case the shocking fascination of the film is produced by helplessness of a lonely human being in the face of a resolute aimless cruelty of some other persons.