Dir: Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck | Cast: Sebastián Koch, Martina Gedeck | Germany Drama 131’
Nostalgia for the Germany of the cold era was at first cautiously expressed under the cover of comedy as in ‘Good Bye Lenin’, with its sympathetic portrayal of an unrepentant communist.
‘The Live of Others’, set in 1984 Berlin, went a stage further by actually making a hero a Stasi officer, to whom – like Harry Caul in ‘The Conversation’ – it’s just a job to be done to the best of his ability, until he actually becomes involved in the life of the human being into whose privacy he’s intruding.
Although a drama, it has its moments of humour, as when a colleague says writers provide more entertainment than trades unionists, or when he flinches when a champagne cork hits one of his concealed microphones. @RichardChatten