The Lives Of Others

I was part of an Oscar pool last night and the goal was to win. So when it came to best foreign film I was forced to choose what I thought would win. So I settled on Pan’s Labyrinth. I felt bad because I wanted The Lives of Others to win. It was the best "getting it wrong" moment I felt all evening. Nikki and I actually cheered when it beat Pan’s; not that Pan’s Labyrinth was bad, I rather liked it. Nikki found I boring, which was a surprise, but it’s filmmaking could not be denied.

Lives writer/director Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck, a first time filmmaker created a movie so intense, so emotionally engaging and such a timeless piece of cinema that I would claim that it was actually the best picture of 2006. Ye it even beats out Children Of Men in my book. Hell he should win just for his name alone. How much of his life has been taken up just telling people, then teaching them how to pronounce it properly? This is not a good example of German efficiency.


The story revolves around Stasi officer who is in charge of spying on the life of a playwright and his actress girlfriend. It has all sorts of agendas interweaving throughout and it becomes such a stunning movie about transformation that it puts those cars into robots things to shame. (Yes I just compared the best film of 2006 to a Hasbro toy line.)

It also reminds me of a thing Kevin Smith wrote, “More often than not, a hero’s most epic battle is the one you never see; it’s the battle goes on within him or herself.” This is a movie about those changes within people, how they react to it and how a controlling government attempts to crush it. A government can destroy the body, but we decide whether or not we allow them to destroy our soul.

For me the strongest aspect was art versus politics. Something that I have always and will always have strong feelings about. There is no more important a voice than art and to me it is the ultimate form of freedom of speech. When it is good, it transcends its author/s and becomes it’s own entity. That’s kind of crazy. It’s like a big bang on a microcosmic level. People can debate about Citizen Kane and who is responsible for it, but at the end of the day, it’s Citizen Kane, end of story.


Anyway I just want to congratulate Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck on making a really great movie, winning an award that he justly deserves and on having a name that is just fucking nuts.