The Lives of Others - 4/5

Director: Florion Henckel von Donnersmarck
Cast: Ulrich Muhe as agent, Sebastian Koch as the playwright and Martina as the actress
Special mention: Bharatbala for bringing it to Indian audience as distributor

Come this weekend, and no new Hindi releases again.. But fortunately few english flicks were on screens.. It was a Saturday and yes… I am one day late for this week’s duty :-)… Batty anna called me for a 6.45 show of “Vantage Point” and I had to reluctantly say no.. coz I had to make a small presentation to our super boss … and eventually the day’s work on a Saturday extended till 7 pm.

A Saturday night brings in another challenge of finding a partner for the movie…. that too for a late night show starting at 11 pm.. when already people would have made prior plans for pubs, movies or discos…

So, thr goes my IP message to IM13 batch..” Anyone interested in ‘The Lives of Others.. @ 11 pm ‘ “ … and those lonely souls in hostel on Saturday nite who had the courtesy to open and message would have felt “Ab yeh kaun si movie hai.. naam tho suna nahi”.. and as expected not a single reply :-)

I made my own analysis of the probables who mite be in campus.. and ramesh’s name came to my mind.. But thr was risk involved as some movies can furiate him.. like it had happened with Khoya Khoya chand.. whn he got so frustrated and started commenting that made the people around (many a rows) uncomfortable.. but then I thought.. “I'm going to make him an offer he can't refuse.”(The famous marlon brando’s quote in ..The Godfather).. and I made him the offer of bearing the ticket expenses.. and also fortunately he was one those very few who knew about this movie and also the fact that it’s a german movie with english subtitles...

To our fortune.. we got a chance to shake hands and talk to Rajat kapoorS who have come to watch the same movie…. and yes both of them (first one of the fame byomkesh bakshi / Making of Mahatma and the other one the unconventional director of Mithya/Mixed doubles/Raghu romeo).

Not very often you get to meet the who’s who of cinema. This incident made us feel that we weren’t the only ones with such interest of watching this academy award winning film in the best foreign language film category.

Coming to the movie … it is about how the lives of a playwright and actress are under the surveillance of State security on the orders of the minister of East german government during the time of 1984 – 89 – 91 (starting from 5 yrs before Glasnost and fall of berlin wall). The lead character is an interrogator (agent code: HGW XX/7) who tracks the conversations of the playwright whose apartment is bugged with microphones.

The playwright wants to publish an article in one of the magazines of west germany about the treatment of government towards the dissidents including one of the directors of the playhouse who commits suicide after he is blacklisted. The political drama depicts how a sincere interrogator empathizes with the playwright and protects him from being arrested by lying the reports.

Watch the movie for its great story and screenplay supported by brilliant performances. The movie has many of heartwarming scenes like the one where the playwright dedicates a novel to HGW XX/7 for his sacrifice. This movie reaffirms the fact that art has no language barriers and some of such good films that I have seen in the past.. with subtitles though were No man’s land, Life is beautiful, City of God, Choker baali etc..

Don’t watch it if you are looking for the technical values or the grandeur of a mainstream English movie.

Please pour in with valuable comments!!!