Debut director Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck presents a resonate drama about surveillance tactics of the Stasi, the secret police in East Germany before the fall of the Berlin Wall.
Georg Dreyman (Sebastian Koch), a subversive playwright, is a ripe eavesdropping target for the Stasi.
Equal time is given to Captain Gerd Wiesler (Ulrich Muehe) the blank-slate bureaucrat assigned to listen in and report on Dreyman’s activities that include an intimate romance with his actress girlfriend Christa-Maria (Martina Gedeck).
Donnersmarck’s confident direction, and exemplary ensemble performances, suggest a fundamental question about why governmental wiretapping seems fascistic and indefensible when performed in other countries, but somehow permissible at home.
The genie is out of the bottle; privacy is a thing of the past.
Oh, the horror.
Rated R. 137 mins.
