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| The Lives Of Others [2007] | ![The Lives Of Others [2007]](http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51GT-evfaTL._SL160_.jpg)
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Avg. Customer Rating:  (based on 83 reviews)
Sales Rank: 28
Category: DVD
Actors: Martina Gedeck, Sebastian Koch, Ulrich Tukur, Hans Bauer, Ulrich Muehe
Director: Florian Henckel Von Donnersmarck
Publisher: Lions Gate Home Entertainment
Studio: Lions Gate Home Entertainment
Manufacturer: Lions Gate Home Entertainment
Label: Lions Gate Home Entertainment
Format: Anamorphic, Pal
Languages: English (Subtitled), German (Original Language)
Rating: Suitable for 15 years and over
Media: DVD
Running Time: 132 minutes
Number Of Items: 1
Aspect Ratio: 1.78:1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.2
Dimensions (in): 7.4 x 5.2 x 0.6
EAN: 5060052412270
ASIN: B000R342QS
Release Date: September 17, 2007
Theatrical Release Date: 2007
Availability: Usually dispatched within 1-2 business days
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| Customer Reviews:
 Poignant April 20, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
I was intrigued and captivated by this film, particularly in comparing how my own life was in the UK, to that in the former GDR in the same period. It was the slowness and 'grey' blandness of the background of the film that paradoxically gives it such power.
Quality Film April 18, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
This film is a must see. Its intense, incredibly revealing and gives you an insight into a period and regime that was truly disturbing. Fantastic.
 No Place To Hide April 10, 2008
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
There is no place to hide in 1980's East Germany (also known in English as the GDR and in Germany as the DDR), as the domestic service officers of the "Stasi" (Staatssicherheitsdienst -- I think I got that right!), the popular name for State Security, spy on even the most intimate moments of those suspected of disloyalty (meaning, thinking out of the socialist box). As in Orwell's 1984, there is no need to spy much on the proles or plebs (the honoured proletariat lol!), but only on the political, scientific and cultural milieus higher up the social scale.
Major W., a Stasi officer, is tasked to do the "full job" on a theatrical director and his girlfriend, mainly because a "Bonzo" (big cheese) in the DDR establishment wants her for his pleasures. Major W. does not at first know the full reason for the surveillance, though he soon guesses. His genuine belief in socialism cannot accept the distortion of it in East Germany. He reports inaccurately to protect the couple, but cannot completely do so...
The stress on personal freedoms in the then DDR is shown very well, the plot develops well and the ending, although not unexpected, is well done, as are the locations and interiors: the furniture in the film reminded me at once of that in the hotel in Bautzen where I stayed (illegally, having bribed one of the desk staff!) overnight in Summer 1988 and where my driver and I were told not to use the bar or attend breakfast, in case anyone noted our presence; and where the Security Police checked the register EVERY MORNING AT 0700! Scary...Likewise, the general atmosphere of suspicion is well-drawn in the film (a tiny boy once demanded of me in the East German countryside "Und warum haben Sie hier gekommen?!" Very scary...and he and his friends were only about 7 years old!).
A very watchable film, despite its necessarily slow pace..
If you like a film that will stay with you for days... April 7, 2008
3 out of 3 found this review helpful
Not much to add to the reviews already here. A film deserving of it's Oscar, Bafta, and numerous other awards. And what a tragedy is the loss of Ulrich Muehe.
a reminder of what good film can be March 30, 2008
4 out of 4 found this review helpful
What an extraordinary, moving, and unique film! And such a refreshing change from the violence and destruction that drive many popular films from Hollywood these days. And yet its theme is one of the darkest- the harm that comes from an all-powerful state with the ability to intrude in personal lives. An update to 1984. But worst of all, it's true, not a fantasy.
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