Last Academy Awards, I was really rooting for Pan's Labyrinth to win Best Foreign Film, so, in my disappointment that it didn't, I wanted to see the film that did win - the German film, The Lives of Others.
Without giving too much away, it takes place in East Germany (it does have subtitles) before the fall of the wall, at a time when the East German Secret Police, the Stasi, wire tap and employ other means of surveillance on anyone who might, even for the slightest of reasons, be deemed an enemy of the state and concentrates on the following of a suspected playwright.
The film generates tension through the implied consequences if the playwright is found to be guilty as suspected and gains its power through our understanding of the situation and the dynamic characters it portrays.
Overall, I thought the film to be very good and deserving of its recognition by the Academy, albeit I still would have cast my vote for Pan's Labyrinth.
Without giving too much away, it takes place in East Germany (it does have subtitles) before the fall of the wall, at a time when the East German Secret Police, the Stasi, wire tap and employ other means of surveillance on anyone who might, even for the slightest of reasons, be deemed an enemy of the state and concentrates on the following of a suspected playwright.
The film generates tension through the implied consequences if the playwright is found to be guilty as suspected and gains its power through our understanding of the situation and the dynamic characters it portrays.
Overall, I thought the film to be very good and deserving of its recognition by the Academy, albeit I still would have cast my vote for Pan's Labyrinth.
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