The Lives of Others: Blu-ray Review, DVD Review

Director Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck's harrowing, Academy Awarding winning Best Foreign Language Film takes audiences back to 1984.

We're in East Germany, it's five years before the fall of the Berlin Wall and there, von Donnersmarck mines a political thriller charged with heart, heat and erotic overtones.

Martina Gedeck (“The Good Shepherd”) is Christa-Maria, an actress whose relationship with the playwright Georg Dreyman (Sebastian Koch) comes under scrutiny by the icy Capt. Gerd Wiesler (Ulrich Muehe), a member of the Stasi whose job it is to eavesdrop on the lives of others, particularly those who might be a traitor, such as Dreyman.

And yet what Wiesler finds in this couple isn't what he expects--a reason to question the regime to which he's given so much.

A beautifully mounted movie.

Rated R. Grade: A.