OWEN'S BESTS
5. The Lives of Others
In the '70s, films like Z and The Conformist powerfully anatomized repressive regimes.
They taught you what the stakes of freedom are,
and Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck's wrenching
drama of spies and informants and the malaise of
Communist tyranny in East Berlin can stand with the
best of them. It captures how the tentacles of fascism
reach right into homes, into relationships, destroying
intimacy as a form of control. At the film's center is
the miraculous performance of Ulrich Mühe as a Stasi
officer who starts to protect the playwright he's spying
on after he learns what hypocrites his own superiors
are. Mühe, who died earlier this year, makes that transformation
as credible, and haunting, as it is subliminal.
The Best & Worst of 2007
The year that was: Our choices -- and yours -- for the highs and lows in pop culture

Hagen Keller


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