Das Leben der Anderen

We have a three disc Netflix subscription. One of them is for me, one of them is for my wife and the third is for the kids (as you can imagine we were very happy when NetFlix reversed their decision to get rid of profiles). Sometimes I'm pretty good about getting through the movies and sending them back, other times I'm really bad. Recently I was really bad, I had "Das Leben der Anderen" (The Lives of Others) out as my movie. I had heard really good things about it, so good that I wanted to make sure my wife got to see it as well. Also it's rated R (aren't all foreign films?) so it's not something we can really watch while the kids are awake.

So the task then becomes to find two and a half hours where the kids are asleep and my wife and I are both in the mood for a depressing sub-titled foreign film. As you might imagine this is a pretty tall order. So I think I had the movie out for over a month before I finally got around to it. And I'm not sure I'd have gotten around to it even then if my wife hadn't decided that she had seen enough depressing movies recently, and she didn't want to watch it.

Anyway having said all of that it was really good, every bit as good as people said. I'm not ashamed to say that I cried at the end. I'd venture to say that it should be required viewing (once they hit a certain age, say college) for everyone who doesn't remember East Germany or the Soviet Bloc.

In California, you can always find a party. In Soviet Russia, The Party can always find you!