Best Foreign Film... 2030

A wonderful film is about to be released on DVD. I saw this film a few months ago in the theater and with it's re-release, I am reminded just how important film this is. The movie is called "Other People's Lives". It is set in East Germany, in the year 1984 and the story in essence, is about government control and its no holds barred attempt to totally dominate the lives of it's citizens, through the use of the media, "official" intimidation, surveillance, "secret" inquiries and covert (and overt) "actions".

The movie is in German and since I do not speak German, I had to rely on the subtitles for the dialogue. I actually love movies with sub-titles. Perhaps that is why the ever present "crawlers" running under most news programs today does not annoy me as much as other people. These movies are unique to me because I actually find that I get much more out of the acting: The pain in his facial expressions, the way she turns in the doorway, their posture when they learn the "news" of one development or the other. These explicit communications of what "is" rather than what is "explained"- makes the experience so intimate for me.

This is the kind of film that keeps your attention for days afterward. The layers upon layers of message and movement continue to be revealed, long after the reels have run out. This movie transported me to the era of the cold war with its images: the grey tones, the cigarette smoke, the European police "sirens" and it's structure; the "pretend" society where the rules are always present but rarely mentioned and it's characters who seemed for the most part like the dancers on a dingy marionette stage, who are not quite aware of the strings attached to their bodies. It is a startlingly accurate portrayal of a truly frightening prescription for existence. One that denies every "freedom" that we as "Americans" have come to take for granted.

As the movie concluded and the credits rolled and I retreated to my own thoughts; a woman rose in front of me and spoke, to herself I suppose, this awkwardly cliche' comment - "I am so glad I live in America". For months now, her simple affirmation, and the complexities and nuance of the film have been reverberating in my head.

This film, viewed from a western perspective, was not surprising in it's portrayal of the dreary existence in Soviet controlled East Germany. We in the USA at that time, seemed to know what was happening in the GDR and I suspect we also wondered why the people there let it go on.

They were wiretapped. They were blacklisted. Their careers were threatened by politicians and women were forced to "cozy up" to the "bosses". They were threatened with prison without trial. Resistors were marginalized, often via the state run media and some... Well, some just disappeared.

I am certain that you are aware of the irony of a movie like this coming out at this point in time, in this country. So I will not "over emphasize".... But I do hope, with more than a dash of skepticism in my mind, that our current society is not the subject of a "docudrama", released somewhere in the not too distant future... I hope that the script is not currently being written, for the best foreign film of 2030...... "I Am So Glad I Live In America"...

Be lucky!