Franz Patrick's Movie Review of Lives of Others, The ( Leben der Anderen, Das )

Rating of
2/4

Lives of Others, The ( Leben der Anderen, Das )

Franz Patrick - wrote on 12/24/07

Critics and casual audiences loved it. I didn't. To me, the only interesting thing about this movie is its subject matter: surveillance in East Berlin during the 1980's in order to retain their hegemony over their people. Sure, there were exciting moments that reminded me of movies when Nazis were about to discover Jewish people's hiding places but those moments weren't enough to save the movie. I found some characters to be a little too frigid even though they supposedly changed at the end of the film. The end was hopeful yet sad, which I usually like, but I thought the melancholy tone was ineffective. I just didn't buy it. I guess I had high expectations coming into this film due to four- and five-star reviews. I thought this was, at best, an average foreign film.

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