La Voz

German filmmaker Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck tells the suspenseful story of Gerd Wiesler (Ulrich Muehe), an agent of the Stasi, the secret police of communist East Germany.

The film shows the oppressive tactics of Eastern Germany's German Democratic Republic (GDR) in the 1980s and deals with the rarely explored story of East Germans living in divided Germany. Even though the movie has only recently hit U.S. theaters in 2007, "The Lives of Others" is certainly one of the better movies of this or last year.

Wiesler, as a Stasi agent, monitors the activity of playwright Georg Dreyman (Sebastian Koch) and his girlfriend, Christa-Maria Sieland (Martina Gedeck).

Initially Wiesler is staunchly dedicated to the Eastern German cause, but he begins to develop an emotional attachment to his subjects. Von Donnersmarck provides Wiesler with real human qualities despite his position as a Stasi agent.

While Wiesler watches the Dreyman and Sieland, we get to watch the development of Wiesler. We see the struggle between his intuitive affection for his these people and his dedication to the Stasi. Unsure whether help ruin Dreyman, Wiesler becomes stuck between his morals and his job.

Von Donnersmarck creates a victim not only out of Dreyman and Sieland, but out of Wiesler as well. The movie shows how the harsh and unfair Eastern German government victimizes the ordinary people, as well as the workers trapped within the system. Gedeck gives one of the best performances of the film as Christa-Maria, Georg's girlfriend and an actress in one of his plays. Gedeck handles some scenes of heavy emotion brilliantly.

Along with Muehe's strong performance as the agent, Gedeck creates the powerful emotional foundation of this film. This film caters to the emotions of the viewers while tackling the relatively unexplored history of the East German communist regime.

It's obvious why the film received 11 nominations at the German Film Awards in 2006. Von Donnersmarck's "The Lives of Others" deserves much praise for this story of human exploitation and should not be overlooked by American audiences.

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