'The Lives of Others': A Bald Man Can Smile

As a friend said to me recently, it is hard to get excited about watching a two and a half hour movie involving the Stasi. After finishing "The Lives of Others," the debut of German director Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck, it is hard to get excited about writing this entry, but I have not been updating as often as I promised and this is the only film I have seen this week.

"The Lives of Others" is a great and unsettling movie, but the material is very dull on paper. So why in God's name did I watch it? Because "Pan's Labyrinth" lost Best Foreign Language Film to it, and I wanted to see whether the Academy blundered as usual or if "The Lives of Others" had any merit.

It took me a long time to sit down and watch the movie, much less pick it up. Reading the plot description on its DVD case in a rental store brought up a troubling question: what poor bastard had to watch the movie in order to write this description? The last thing I wanted was to end up like that writer, too bored to do his job anymore.

I also do not want you to end up like me. I almost did not put the DVD in my player because some people were stubborn enough to mention the story, virtually impossible to render into interesting language. Another futile attempt would torture you and me and give this movie an even smaller pool of potential viewers.

Perhaps the best approach here is to casually remark on a few seemingly random pieces of fascination within "The Lives of Others." A fat bald politician pulls down his embarrassing underwear to force himself on a writer's insecure girlfriend. A bald play director commits suicide and inspires an article that tangles the collective panties of the East Germany government. And the Main Bald Man finally smiles after frowning so much.

The bottom line is baldies drive the story of "The Lives of Others," and you will not find a more enticing comment than that.