It is no secret that I like Soviet stuff. When I went to Prague I delighted in staying in the Stalinist Crowne Plaza hotel pictured above. I ignored Prague's pretty European stuff which my fellow travelers from the US were enjoying and went seeking out the brutalist Sov monuments. I also liked that movie Goodbye Lenin. I obviously suffer from some weird form of Ostalgie.
Fortunately there is a cure. The Lives of Others is a superb film about life under the Stasi. I will never be able to be quite so flip about communism again. I unreservedly recommend this movie. You should try and see it before there is a Hollywood remake.
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But the film is still so ostalgic - the great ostrock playing at all the writer's parties and the way it ends in the Karl Marx Buchhandlung on Karl Marx Allee.
ReplyDeleteOK, maybe. But the stasi stuff was so string for me that it overwhelemed any ostalgie.
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ReplyDeleteI just saw this film last night at the SF Berlin & Beyond Film Festival. A stunning story. And as a German-American, it hits home in many ways. I especially like Muehe's portrayal of Wiesler as human, after all.
ReplyDeleteHere's my writeup: http://sunset-stories.blogspot.com/2008/01/lives-of-others-is-for-you.html