Lives Of Others

The Sunday Age

Sunday September 9, 2007

Iain McKay

3.5/5

Lives Of Others

(M, 137 mins) Hopscotch

Ordered to construct a case against a famous writer, a Stasi officer (East German secret police) bugs his apartment. With husbands spying on wives, brothers on sisters and neighbours on each other, there are no easy solutions to the social trauma this must have caused. Yet it hasn't stopped the filmmakers from offering up a soft-centred, if bittersweet alternative, with our Stasi officer having a sudden change of heart. It may have been intended as a gesture of reconciliation rather than a frank expose, but the facts don't support it, nor does the officer's lifetime of conditioning. The film's half-hearted revisionism is exposed by a rather messy and implausible ending that diminishes this otherwise impressive Oscar-winning film. Extras: A "making of".