 The Lives of Others
Starring: Martina Gedeck, Ulrich Muehe, Sebastian Koch, Ulrich Tukur, Thomas Thieme, Volkmar Kleinert
Directed by: Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck
Screenplay by: Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck
Release Date: February 9, 2007
MPAA Rating: R for some sexuality / nudity.
Studio: Sony Pictures Classics
 Domestic: $11,286,112 (15.0%)
Foreign: $64,018,508 (85.0%)
Total: $75,304,620 (Worldwide)
|
|
 Tagline: Nothing is private. Nothing is sacred.
East Berlin, November 1984. Five years before its downfall, the former East-German government ensured its claim to power with a ruthless system of control and surveillance. Party-loyalist Captain Gerd Wiesler hopes to boost his career when given the job of collecting evidence against the playwright Georg Dreyman and his girlfriend, the celebrated theater actress Christa-Maria Sieland.
After all, the "operation" is backed by the highest political circles. What he didn't anticipate, however, was that submerging oneself into the world of the target also changes the surveillance agent. The immersion in the lives of others--in love, literature, free thinking and speech--makes Wiesler acutely aware of the meagerness of his own existence and opens to him a completely new way of life which he has ever more trouble resisting. But the system, once started, cannot be stopped. A dangerous game has begun.
At once a political thriller and human drama, The Lives of Others begins in East Berlin in 1984, five years before Glasnost and the fall of the Berlin Wall and ultimately takes us to 1991, in what is now the reunited Germany. The Lives of Others traces the gradual disillusionment of Captain Gerd Wiesler (Ulrich Muhe, best known for his lead roles in Michael Haneke's Funny Games and as Dr. Mengele in Costa-Gavras' Amen), a highly skilled officer who works for the Stasi, East Germany's all-powerful secret police.
|
RSS Feed XML Sitemap HTML Sitemap Privacy Policy
