Creative quotient
The Lives Of Others is a German film based in a period just before the German wall was brought down. It is based on the socio political cesspool that prevailed in East Germany at the time.
The East German police kept tabs on influential social personalities and figures in the country through various covert methods. Their secret agents plant microphones in the house of people to be monitored and even use their own peers to spy on them. Every minute detail of their lives gets recorded and is put down in paper in a setup close to their home.
An operative Gerd Wiesler (Ulrich Muhe) is put in charge of monitoring a popular play wright and writer Georg Dreyman (Sebastian Koch). His house is tagged by listening devices and Wiesler keeps an ear for every event in Dreyman’s apartment where he lives with his girlfriend and popular actress Christa-Maria Sieland (Martina Gedeck).
The film looks into the dark realities of a country’s governance invading the privacy of its citizens and on a parallel track highlights the shortcomings of humans in understanding their own lives and truths.

Technical expertise
The film is surreal in the way it presents a shallow German world. Its settings, sets and ambience recreate the murky German atmosphere with great conviction.
Films like The Lives Of Others are character driven and this film’s actors do a hell of a job portraying their complex characters.
The screenplay and script is well crafted and maintains a good deal of grip on the audience. The film is not fast paced, but its developments are dramatic enough to engage the viewer’s attention at all times.
The film is sprinkled with lots of plot twists and its reflection on the lives of its characters delivers an awe inspiring insight on the plight of people under a covert government scanner. The character of Wiesler develops a liking for Dreyman and is almost sympathetic with his conditions in spite of the fact that his mission is to frame Dreyman.
The Lives Of Others is a complex film that is dramatic to say the least.

Verdict
The film is a must see and its worth four stars. The elements that need to be highlighted are the magnificent acting performances, the direction, the scripting and finally the production designer’s excellence in recreating a tense German world.