cinema

IF you're intelligent, and IF you really understand subtlety and irony, you'll find a lot to admire in the film "The Lives of Others" at the Maple theater. It's about an East German secret police (STASI) agent who is spying (via a totally bugged apartment) on a famous playwrite and his companion, a famous actess. The agent, a typical mindless "drone'of the communist state, as he observes all the intimate aspects of these people's live, comes to know them as humans, and gradually discovers his own humanity. A critic calls it a vivid exploration of moral conduct and the price of principle. I won't spoil the plot, but the last two minutes are extraordinary!! It's very NOT american (as opposed to UNamerican) as it avoides a typical "sewing up the ends" style of most popular cinema.
The acting is superb, but subtle. The photography is....OK...it actually mirrors the bleak life people lived in a corrupt totalitarian state. The overall effect is fantastic. go see it