The Lives of Others (2006)

Premise: While attending a new play with an enterprising co-worker, Grubitz (Ulrich Tukur), Wiesler (Ulrich Mühe) suggests that the Stasi put the playwright, Dreyman (Sebastian Koch), under surveillance. The same night, Minister Hempf (Thomas Thieme), suggests the same thing, although for vastly different reasons. Grubitz puts Wiesler in charge of the operation, but Wiesler finds himself drawn closer to Dreyman and his girlfriend, Christa (Martina Gedeck), than the cold embrace of Communist Germany in 1985.

This is one of the best movies I have ever seen in my entire life. Perhaps it seems that I say such things a lot, at least recently, but you have no idea how tense, how thrilling, and how satisfying a movie can be until you see this one. There are few movies that give you the best possible ending they could, and this offering is among them. Writer-director Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck, whose work I had never seen before Friday, strikes me now as a prince among men for his ability to fill a film about such terrible times with such wit, intelligence, and humanity. Plus, I liked his acceptance speech on Sunday.

From Mühe's economical performance (positive sense), I understood long before we saw his apartment how spartan his existence would be. What I wasn't prepared for was how hardscrabble it was. Mühe never let the slightest bit of depression at the state of Wielser's life show, nor did Wiesler seem resigned, as though he had tried for but found he could do no better. Instead, he lived in a peaceful, banal way until he discovered that, for some, there could be more. A more he believed he was not for him, a more he believe he could protect. My heart breaks for that last shot when Mühe finally lets the slightest bit of emotion show on Wiesler's face.

Koch and Gedeck had the unenviable task of creating something that could sway the heart and loyalty of such a devoted company man, and they did it by generating the warmest of affections. The relationship was lived in yet fresh. Even when deceptions began creeping up, you could still see why the two loved each other. Gedeck has an amazing face for film, conveying a plethora of emotions silently and, it seems, effortlessly. Koch, who is all kinds of sexy, gets that Dreyman is smart, but he's not smarter. He's talented, yes, but he still has to work for it. Things aren't as easy for him as they could be if he lived somewhere else. He's not about to leave. He'll stay to fight, even if he doesn't know what that means or what it could cost him.

Between Stéphane Moucha and Gabriel Yared's score, Hagen Bogdanski's cinematography, and von Donnersmarck's superb script and direction, it doesn't get better than this. A+ (would that there were a higher score)