The Lives of Others - Translated

We intended to see, and then perhaps post a review of, the Oscar-winning foreign film The Lives of Others. But reality intruded. An anonymous op-ed in the Washington Post more or less beat us to it.

For those who don't much care for foreign language films, here's a translation into 'American' of Roger Ebert's synopsis of the movie plot:

It feels like science fiction... but the chilling and chilly dystopian world of writer-director Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck's George Bush's "The Lives of Others" National Security Letters existed exists today. The film F.B.I. policy, which begins in 1984, 2002 is a depiction of historical reality very real, not a cautionary fiction. It's set in East Germany the United States of America, ... then once upon a time a Soviet bloc communist-totalitarian state democratic nation that respected the rule of law. Think of it as "The Conversation" behind the Iron U.S. Department of Justice Curtain.

Wielser is just one of hundreds of thousands More than 140,000 anonymous secret police are employed by the Stasi, Federal Bureau of Investigation, a massive domestic intelligence effort designed to keep tabs on German American citizens and weed out possible subversives.

You should read the rest of the plot here. Everyone should.