Reviews

I watched this movie only by chance after first reading many eulogies it received among reviewers. As the theme developed and I began to enjoy the immediacy of the plot I slowly realized this wasn't quite the sensitive searching look back upon a failed social experiment I'd been led to believe. As you would expect modern performers are convincing actors - I think the sharpness and no frills approach of modern TV drama has over the years lifted the profession anyway. Can anyone imagine how long an temperamental Joan Crawford type of artist would last in today's climate! The plot whilst rather transparent was adequate. As it developed and later seemed to hinge upon the DDR suicide issue I could see the female lead was probably doomed - but then I remembered another real life suicide 'urban myth' from my younger days. In those days Sweden was (somewhat irritating for certain quarters) successful in its social policies. Its 'progressive' politicians with their caring 'populist' internal behavior and humane foreign approach won a great deal of admiration - after a while assertions started circulating in the media. "Ah yes but"...suddenly it seemed they had the highest suicide ratings in the world - seemingly there was insufficient excitement in Swedish lives. Boredom caused them to dive under buses, jump into rivers and hang themselves under bridges. Hmmm! I expected an intelligent and genuine examination of a top/down flawed new approach to Societies problems - a fllmic reversal of the many failed classic attempts over millennia to overthrow the stifling elites by revolt from below. I'm afraid this movie is being hailed by the same people who convinced me that Obama saw things in a different light....his was a new approach....the tone is certainly different but nothing has altered. 'The lives of others' is yet another example - you've seen it before, nothing is changed it is just another predictably praised - I noticed for instance Wm Buckley and one of the Podhoritz clan - two of the foundling godfathers of the NeoCon mafia lauding it as 'The greatest movie I've ever seen' in one case and 'One of the greatest movies ever made in the other'. We've been conned again I'm sorry to say it's just another 'Commie Bashing' production. The movie was seen eventually on a business trip with a well known Airline - I am flying again a few weeks time and am look forward to a viewing of Michael Moores latest item 'Capitalism - a love story'. Ahem....I'm sure it will be freely available.

Dear Mr. von Donnersmarck, I have just finished watching "The Lives of Others" while listening to your director's commentary. I must thank you not only for the beautiful, rich experience that your film imparts but also for the generosity with which you share your own feelings and thoughts. The first time I watched the film, I was taken by the thriller aspects -- the depth of futility with which the East German people had to live was (as you show) literally life-threatening in its oppressive persistence. When the mere act of imagining becomes labeled "subversive" by the government, what life can a person truly have? But what I wanted to write here was to you, Mr. von Donnersmarck, to thank you for your kindness. You are such a generous, intelligent and kind soul. Your film moved me, but your commentary had me in tears. The sheer magnitude of the things you dealt with in the construction of this artwork is mind-boggling and your ability to attend to such detail is nothing short of genius. The warmth that you share with your audience in how you adore the actors and crew, your willingness to be open and honest, your sense of humor, the warmth and the love you feel and communicate -- all these things give me such deep respect for you, and let me know that you have earned, in advance, every accolade you receive, now and in the future. What a breadth of knowledge you have! To go from recommending Brecht as a good reason to learn German to putting a "Visitors Welcome" sign on Stasi headquarters! To speak of the Leitmotif and how you used it in the music, but also show us the Pieta. You show us a lonely man, yet you filled the world around him with love. You talk of persistence, yet you admit your mistakes (when you talk about the color palette and say that there is no red, as if on queue, the councilman's brakelights go on. I thought you'd laugh at that...). You are a man like whom I would most earnestly want to be. I envy those who have the honor of calling you friend. Chris

A police spy is assigned to monitor a renowned author and playwright suspected of spreading heretical pamphlets objecting to the limitations on rights and freedoms in partitioned Eastern Germany. In the process of monitoring the author's conversations and visits, the spy is increasingly troubled by the integrity, nobility, and humanity of the person he is assigned to convict. The Lives of Others illustrates the pull of a guileless, hopeful idealism on a simple civil servant and gives us a touching and bittersweet definition of what it means to be human. In the midst of intense injustice, misery and grief of partitioned Eastern Germany, it is a story of humanity, trust, and gratitude.

'The Lives of Others' is an interesting recent German film set in the old Communist DDR, depicting a relationship between watcher and watched. The watched is Georg Dreyman, a playwright known for his ideological plays, and the only living East German playwright who is read in the West (the film being set in 1984). His plays express the possibility that people are capable of change - much to the contempt of the Minister for Culture, who doesn't believe they are. The corrupt Minister, who has designs on Dreyman's actress girlfriend, orders the Stasi (state security) to investigate him. Enter the watcher: Stasi officer Gerd Wiesler. Wiesler leads a lonely, fairly meaningless existence, mirroring the feeling of East Berlin itself (as portrayed in the film). But Wiesler also has an idealist streak, in contrast to his more Machiavellian colleagues. This idealism doens't quite mesh with the corrupt system - and perhaps he has sensed this subconsciously for some time. The things he overhears when listening in on Dreyman finally convince him that the system is not what it claims to be, nor what he originally thought it was. 'The Lives of Others' is certainly worth watching for the evocative historical atmosphere it creates. Worth noting, too, is the ending, set two years after the fall of the Berlin Wall. Dreyman attends a new version of one of his old plays in Berlin, and comes face to face with his old enemy the Culture Minister. The latter expresses his contempt for the new Germany, saying it gives people "nothing to believe in, nothing to rebel against". There is a phenomenon in Germany called 'Ostalgie' (nostaglia for the old East), and this may be the most eloquent critique of the new Germany - that an old Commie finds it so insipid as to be "not even worth rebelling against!" But one thing the film DOESN'T show is how many ex-Stasi rats are still loose in the corridors of Berlin. The German Financial Time claims that around 17,000 ex-Stasi members are now civil servants. And that means the ex-Minister is wrong - the current German regime IS worth rebelling against.

"The Lives of Others" follows the quietly exploits of an unlikely hero. Georg Dreyman is a brilliant writer, and intelligent enough to think for himself in a regime that prizes the appearance of such qualities, but moves to suppress it nonetheless. But Dreyman is not the hero of this tale. Hauptman Gerd Weisler is both an enforcer for the GDR's notorious secret police - "The Stasi" - and a dedicated believer in the state. Luckily for Dreyman, Weisler proves to be one of the few true believers left alive in the GDR. A genius in the art of interrogation, Weisler is fixed for a career above those relegated (virtually imprisoned) in a cellar steam-opening envelopes. When Weisler receives orders to surveille the author, he finds little of concern - the brilliant Dreyman proves no threat to the sanctity of the regime. Instead, Weisler learns that his superiors' interests in the playright stem from less-than purely socialist motives. Walking a tightrope, Weisler his own venal bosses to protect the playright without revealing his role. "Others" is such a brilliant and understated film for several reasons. Weisler becomes a hero, while preserving his outward appearance as an arm of the dreaded Stasi. Even late in the film, in a scene where he interrogates Dreyman's actress lover, you never lose sense of the unimaginable pressure and terror he exerts on his "victims". Most stories reserve the glory for the beautiful, the epic and the undeniably valorous - but "Others" reveals the heroic role that even the ugly, the hated and the craven must thanklessly play in the battle for freedom.

Reviews

I watched this movie only by chance after first reading many eulogies it received among reviewers. As the theme developed and I began to enjoy the immediacy of the plot I slowly realized this wasn't quite the sensitive searching look back upon a failed social experiment I'd been led to believe. As you would expect modern performers are convincing actors - I think the sharpness and no frills approach of modern TV drama has over the years lifted the profession anyway. Can anyone imagine how long an temperamental Joan Crawford type of artist would last in today's climate! The plot whilst rather transparent was adequate. As it developed and later seemed to hinge upon the DDR suicide issue I could see the female lead was probably doomed - but then I remembered another real life suicide 'urban myth' from my younger days. In those days Sweden was (somewhat irritating for certain quarters) successful in its social policies. Its 'progressive' politicians with their caring 'populist' internal behavior and humane foreign approach won a great deal of admiration - after a while assertions started circulating in the media. "Ah yes but"...suddenly it seemed they had the highest suicide ratings in the world - seemingly there was insufficient excitement in Swedish lives. Boredom caused them to dive under buses, jump into rivers and hang themselves under bridges. Hmmm! I expected an intelligent and genuine examination of a top/down flawed new approach to Societies problems - a fllmic reversal of the many failed classic attempts over millennia to overthrow the stifling elites by revolt from below. I'm afraid this movie is being hailed by the same people who convinced me that Obama saw things in a different light....his was a new approach....the tone is certainly different but nothing has altered. 'The lives of others' is yet another example - you've seen it before, nothing is changed it is just another predictably praised - I noticed for instance Wm Buckley and one of the Podhoritz clan - two of the foundling godfathers of the NeoCon mafia lauding it as 'The greatest movie I've ever seen' in one case and 'One of the greatest movies ever made in the other'. We've been conned again I'm sorry to say it's just another 'Commie Bashing' production. The movie was seen eventually on a business trip with a well known Airline - I am flying again a few weeks time and am look forward to a viewing of Michael Moores latest item 'Capitalism - a love story'. Ahem....I'm sure it will be freely available.

Dear Mr. von Donnersmarck, I have just finished watching "The Lives of Others" while listening to your director's commentary. I must thank you not only for the beautiful, rich experience that your film imparts but also for the generosity with which you share your own feelings and thoughts. The first time I watched the film, I was taken by the thriller aspects -- the depth of futility with which the East German people had to live was (as you show) literally life-threatening in its oppressive persistence. When the mere act of imagining becomes labeled "subversive" by the government, what life can a person truly have? But what I wanted to write here was to you, Mr. von Donnersmarck, to thank you for your kindness. You are such a generous, intelligent and kind soul. Your film moved me, but your commentary had me in tears. The sheer magnitude of the things you dealt with in the construction of this artwork is mind-boggling and your ability to attend to such detail is nothing short of genius. The warmth that you share with your audience in how you adore the actors and crew, your willingness to be open and honest, your sense of humor, the warmth and the love you feel and communicate -- all these things give me such deep respect for you, and let me know that you have earned, in advance, every accolade you receive, now and in the future. What a breadth of knowledge you have! To go from recommending Brecht as a good reason to learn German to putting a "Visitors Welcome" sign on Stasi headquarters! To speak of the Leitmotif and how you used it in the music, but also show us the Pieta. You show us a lonely man, yet you filled the world around him with love. You talk of persistence, yet you admit your mistakes (when you talk about the color palette and say that there is no red, as if on queue, the councilman's brakelights go on. I thought you'd laugh at that...). You are a man like whom I would most earnestly want to be. I envy those who have the honor of calling you friend. Chris

A police spy is assigned to monitor a renowned author and playwright suspected of spreading heretical pamphlets objecting to the limitations on rights and freedoms in partitioned Eastern Germany. In the process of monitoring the author's conversations and visits, the spy is increasingly troubled by the integrity, nobility, and humanity of the person he is assigned to convict. The Lives of Others illustrates the pull of a guileless, hopeful idealism on a simple civil servant and gives us a touching and bittersweet definition of what it means to be human. In the midst of intense injustice, misery and grief of partitioned Eastern Germany, it is a story of humanity, trust, and gratitude.

'The Lives of Others' is an interesting recent German film set in the old Communist DDR, depicting a relationship between watcher and watched. The watched is Georg Dreyman, a playwright known for his ideological plays, and the only living East German playwright who is read in the West (the film being set in 1984). His plays express the possibility that people are capable of change - much to the contempt of the Minister for Culture, who doesn't believe they are. The corrupt Minister, who has designs on Dreyman's actress girlfriend, orders the Stasi (state security) to investigate him. Enter the watcher: Stasi officer Gerd Wiesler. Wiesler leads a lonely, fairly meaningless existence, mirroring the feeling of East Berlin itself (as portrayed in the film). But Wiesler also has an idealist streak, in contrast to his more Machiavellian colleagues. This idealism doens't quite mesh with the corrupt system - and perhaps he has sensed this subconsciously for some time. The things he overhears when listening in on Dreyman finally convince him that the system is not what it claims to be, nor what he originally thought it was. 'The Lives of Others' is certainly worth watching for the evocative historical atmosphere it creates. Worth noting, too, is the ending, set two years after the fall of the Berlin Wall. Dreyman attends a new version of one of his old plays in Berlin, and comes face to face with his old enemy the Culture Minister. The latter expresses his contempt for the new Germany, saying it gives people "nothing to believe in, nothing to rebel against". There is a phenomenon in Germany called 'Ostalgie' (nostaglia for the old East), and this may be the most eloquent critique of the new Germany - that an old Commie finds it so insipid as to be "not even worth rebelling against!" But one thing the film DOESN'T show is how many ex-Stasi rats are still loose in the corridors of Berlin. The German Financial Time claims that around 17,000 ex-Stasi members are now civil servants. And that means the ex-Minister is wrong - the current German regime IS worth rebelling against.

"The Lives of Others" follows the quietly exploits of an unlikely hero. Georg Dreyman is a brilliant writer, and intelligent enough to think for himself in a regime that prizes the appearance of such qualities, but moves to suppress it nonetheless. But Dreyman is not the hero of this tale. Hauptman Gerd Weisler is both an enforcer for the GDR's notorious secret police - "The Stasi" - and a dedicated believer in the state. Luckily for Dreyman, Weisler proves to be one of the few true believers left alive in the GDR. A genius in the art of interrogation, Weisler is fixed for a career above those relegated (virtually imprisoned) in a cellar steam-opening envelopes. When Weisler receives orders to surveille the author, he finds little of concern - the brilliant Dreyman proves no threat to the sanctity of the regime. Instead, Weisler learns that his superiors' interests in the playright stem from less-than purely socialist motives. Walking a tightrope, Weisler his own venal bosses to protect the playright without revealing his role. "Others" is such a brilliant and understated film for several reasons. Weisler becomes a hero, while preserving his outward appearance as an arm of the dreaded Stasi. Even late in the film, in a scene where he interrogates Dreyman's actress lover, you never lose sense of the unimaginable pressure and terror he exerts on his "victims". Most stories reserve the glory for the beautiful, the epic and the undeniably valorous - but "Others" reveals the heroic role that even the ugly, the hated and the craven must thanklessly play in the battle for freedom.

Reviews

Fantastic movie, keeps you interested and glued throughout. Great acting by cast, more movies like these are needed

Escalating events begin when African-born U.N. translator Silvia Broome alleges that she has overheard a death threat against an African head of state, spoken in a rare dialect few people other than Silvia can understand. With the words "The Teacher will never leave this room alive," in an instant, Silvia's life is turned upside down as she becomes a hunted target of the killers. This is an extremely fearful movie, with a mood, tone and cascade of plot twists. A solid entertainment.

To be fair, the script has possibilities, but it would take the pacing of Hitchcock's direction and the narrative expressiveness of Jimmy Stewart's acting to save it from becoming perhaps the new millennium's slowest film to date. Unfortunate, because in a sense all of us are "interpreters" of the actions of others, frequently tempted, moreover, to "over-interpret" by taking the law into our own hands, countering terrorism with vengeful personal righteousness that merely contributes to a terrorist mentality on an ever-widening scale. The political message is sound; the entertainment value conducive to a sound sleep.

This movie is great. I really appreciated the fact that it is serious and thoughtful- not the overblown nonsense that I think the advertisements and whatnot made it out to be. There are several films that, while not direct comparisons in all ways, illuminate what I mean-- compare this film to "Shooter" or "The Siege". Those other movies are Hollywood nonsense all the way-- over-the-top, unrealistic, and cheesy. This movie, while also dealing with political intrigue, is completely realistic, at least in the way it treats the characters and their motivations. Perhaps some might argue that the individual "suspense" elements of plot are not very realistic, but the fine acting, script, and serious presentation give those elements more credibility than they might have if just considered on their own merits. The film is measured, without a lot of dramatic music and flashy editing. It also treats the fictional political conflict, which could easily stand in for any number of real-world situations such as Zimbabwe, Sri Lanka, or the Congo, very seriously and does a good job connecting human emotions with a type of conflict that most of us probably don't relate to very well here in the US. The best thing about the movie is the acting by Nicole Kidman and Sean Penn. They are both utter professionals who clearly embraced their roles. Ms. Kidman is icy and enigmatic, but somehow still allows the viewer to feel her barely submerged pain and suffering. Mr. Penn is completely convincing as a consumate professional torn up by some inner demons. Perhaps some viewers may not find this movie particularly "entertaining." It lacks the sensationalism and flash that audiences might expect. It also features some pretty miserable characters-- I don't think there's a single laugh in the whole film. The politics it deals with is the type most Americans would rather pretend don't exist- the continued suffering and strife of impoverished post-colonial African nations. It is however, a masterfully acted, technically accomplished, and thought-provoking movie, and a really tense thriller, as well.

love this movie! saw it on television and decided to purchase it, so I could watch it again. very believeable plot and terrific acting by Penn and Kidman. if you like intrigue and suspence, this is the movie for you!

Reviews

First, I like the price on this unit. You get a very compact package for the price. With that said, my opinion is that the video signal is a little too noisy. I was getting noise even just transmitting video across my family room. It was probably getting interference from my wireless network, but seeing as how these networks are pretty common these days you might want to think twice before committing, and have a back-up plan if necessary. The perfect solution would be something nice and small like this one, but that encodes the signal digitally.

i have used it with battery video is clear but audio NOT CLEAR !! even 4 meters away !!

Do not buy this camera from this company. I recieved this camera and i was so excited, but when i set it up i realized that the reciever was broken. I never got to even try it out.

I like how this unit is so tiny it's practically hidden without even trying. No one would guess what this really is unless they already knew in advance what to look for. It runs 5-6 hours on a 9v battery, or you can use the ac adaptor that's included. I was able to get 350ft+ range on the device. Probably could have gotten more range out of it too. I recommend this device for anyone who needs a tiny remote camcorder to monitor what's going on. The audio feature is also cool, but you should check your wiretap laws before using it!

Reviews

I bought this camera hoping to be able to install it about 25 feet from the receiver. Installation was very easy and I found a spot where I could plug in the camera transformer and still be able to get a good angle of view. However, I was never able to get a stable picture. I used the tuning knob but that didn't stop the picture from flickering constantly. I tried moving the camera and transmitter to new locations. Nothing worked. The units were not near other electronic equipment (other than the small monitor). The only time I could get a steady picture was when the camera and the receiver were within six feet of one another. In my opinion, the camera is totally useless.

Neat little gadget for the price. Resolution is similar to a phone camera, good color, some focus adjustment, very small and compact cam, but range for interruption free reception is best within 30 ft.

it is good however not to be expected so much from it. manoj

I bought several of thee for mt company. some of my fellow workers wanted me to mount them in smoke detectors cigarette pack even a remote controlled plane for a photographer arial...he made big bugs getting arial shots for new hotels and bizs..rec highly Ill bebuying 50 more to mount...Oh I even mounted one in my little boys bob the builder..they are that small