Precious is a new-style weepie but one that is much more bracing than depressing
Precious
Theatre
Ian McKellen is captivating throughout. He delights in the play’s gallows humour, yet is also maudlin and poignant
Waiting for Godot
Theatre
Slight quibbles notwithstanding, this will set the West End’s stock riding high
Enron
Utterly, utterly brilliant. You really are in for a treat
Though 'Trilogy' has won rave reviews, I personally found myself exasperated after about an hour
We went on a quiet sunday evening and the food was excellent, but the experience let down by the service and ambiance
London,
Derek Malcolm's rating
Reader rating
Dir: Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck.
Cast: Ulrich Muhe, Sebastian Koch, Martina Gedeck, Ulrich Tukur
Description: Acclaimed playwright Georg Dreyman lives in the divided city of Berlin during the mid-'80s with his actress girlfriend Christa-Maria. Suspected of activities contrary to the ways of East German Communism, Georg is placed under covert surveillance and Stasi officer Captain Gerd Wiesler is given the task of spying on the playwright, making detailed notes about every conversation. As the days pass, Gerd begins to sympathise with Georg and the officer interferes in his target's life to keep him safe from harm.
Country: GER. 2006. 138mins
Bugs in the bedroom: Sebastian Koch and Martina Gedeck cannot escape the Stasi
The Stasi, the East German secret police, numbered 100,000 in the years before the Berlin Wall was breached. There were also 200,000 informants, paid or often forced to collaborate out of sheer fear.
This is the subject of Florian von Donnersmarck's remarkable debut film, and at first you feel that its subject matter rather than its cinematic flair has prompted so much praise and so many prizes, including the Academy Award for Best Foreign Film.
In truth, The Lives of Others hasn't the fluency and flourish of Almodóvar's Volver nor the imaginative power of the Mexican Pan's Labyrinth. But it's the kind of quietly effective production that grows on you as you watch it until, at the end, you realise you have seen the best film yet made about Mr Honecker's Socialist Republic.
The central characters are well-known and much-applauded playwright Georg (Sebastian Koch), his equally lauded actress paramour Christa-Maria (Martina Gedeck) and the fanatically upright Stasi operative Gerd (Ulrich Muhe) who is sent to bug the writer's apartment and spy on them.
Georg believes in the GDR, even though he has his private doubts. He is loyal despite the fact that his favoured producer has been blacklisted and is unable to work.
The Stasi man, one of the regime's reliables, admires the actress, and is disconcerted to discover that the real reason the pair are being watched for the slightest deviation from loyalty is because a high-up in the regime desires her.
At first Gerd continues his work but slowly realises that even his devotion to the cause, illustrated by a horrendous lecture to aspiring Stasi students early in the film, will not be enough in this case. His whole life seems useless to him, and he resolves to put paid to the scheming of the lustful minister.
The film's portrait of a society bleakly in thrall to a corrupt system is painted in short sharp exchanges of dialogue alongside which the grey surroundings of the GDR add an eloquent additional commentary. And the acting, without being noticeable for its virtuosity, hits the right note throughout.
As Gerd, Muhe, with his stony-faced lack of expression but eyes that seem to beseech his conscience to wake up, deserves particular praise. Since the passing of a declassification act in 1992, more than one and a half million people have viewed their Stasi records, including Muhe and his wife. Perhaps that's why his performance seems so apt. But is the character truthful? That is the question that has troubled so many who lived within the GDR, and who refuse to believe any Stasi man could ultimately prove so human.
Yet, however real those doubts seem to some, this is surely a film which transcends them. Like the playwright himself, Donnersmarck suggests that man can change, often for the worse but sometimes for the better. If he didn't this would be a deeply pessimistic as well as an outstanding film.
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