I just watched this movie tonight and I highly, highly recommend it. The acting is superb and it a fantastic movie. You feel like you are experiencing the events portrayed. It has just made my list of one of my all time favorite movies. If you are a Comcast subscriber it is available for free on On Demand.
There are no exciting chase scenes in this movie. There are few moments of high edge-of-your-seat drama, but it is a chilling film. It shows how people live their lives in a police state and how constant surveillance and oppression becomes a normal existence and how resistance can seem futile. The film is in German with English subtitles, but after the first few minutes you do not even realize you are reading.
Those who came into adulthood since the fall of the Berlin wall and those who lived through the cold war but did not pay attention need to watch this film. Many will never read a history of the era and never read a massive tome by Solzhenitsyn or other defectors who told of the horrors of life behind the iron curtain, but watching this film will let one know what life in a totalitarian society is like.
Unfortunately, our culture and academia never thought it appropriate to be overtly anti-Communist. The liberal establishment never wanted to call evil, evil. From the very first until the bitter end, Communist regimes always had Western intellectuals, and Hollywood-types and media opinion leaders who were their apologist. To boldly proclaim we were the good guys in the cold war was consider jingoistic.The liberal establishment never wanted to destroy communism, but wanted to co-exist with it and sought "understanding." Therefore, they did not want to expose the evil for what it was.
Hopefully, communism has been placed on the "ash heap of history" and will not be revived but people need to know why the evil empire really was evil. There are still many who are enthralled by Marxism and still think a strong government is necessary to achieve the perfectibility of man. They excuse a lot because they believe the goal is so noble. They may condemn the "excesses" of the communist experiment but do not reject the premise. Whether it is a revival of communism or totalitarianism under some other name, I fear that we have not seen the last totalitarian police state.
Please watch this movie and recommend it. Everyone needs to see it.
The Lives of Others (2006) Das Leben der Anderen (original title)
Reviews: 354 user | 194 critic | 39 from Metacritic.com
Top Stories
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment