The bad old days of the Berlin Wall and the Big Brother tactics of the GDR secret police, the Stasi. The case in point: a Party pooh-bah has the hots for a celebrated stage actress and, to clear the way, orders some dirt dug up on her playwright boyfriend, an apparently loyal socialist of spotless reputation despite his openly subversive friends and despite, too, his openly snooty manner. Tukur is good again in the role of the bureaucratic brownnoser who heads up the investigation.

Perfect for someone who enjoys a cold war setting. It's not exactly a war movie, it just happens to take place in Berlin during that divide. I love the way the story develops, and you see a real change in the main character's feelings as he starts to sympathize with people who are supposed to be his enemies. The whole ordeal is a sort of great humanizing process, making war less faceless.

Slow, but rewarding. It's interesting to see the eavesdropper fall for the people he's spying, gripping those headphones for the next scene in their lives. The moment he approaches the woman at the bar was the turning point for me, that's when the film finally won me over. An intelligent movie with an outstanding lead performance.

Pretty impressive piece of cinema. Movie starts off in 1984 before of the fall of the Berlin Wall, on a Stasi (German Secret Police) agent, who is asked to track a playwright and monitor his daily life. Speaking anything more about the film kind of spoils the rest of it so. I thouroughly enjoyed this film, but I can't recommend it if you aren't into dramas or whatnot. For those of you who are, check it out.

Very sensible story without sentimentalism. Tells about artists' (the soul's engineers) will of expression and repression and an officer sensibility. The final shot is just perfect.

A bit too reliant on the wide-angle lens for some reason, but this is a relatively effective surveillance film, but focuses less on paranoia and tension, and more on emotions. I really loved the ending, it was a perfect sign-off for Ulrich Muhe.

Fine German engineering strikes again.

What can I say. A must see. Another jewel from German cinema.

The story is stiff and clunky and hopelessly simplistic. The characters are underdeveloped and appear to reverse their states of mind with robotic berevity. For a movie supposedly dealing with subjects of moral and psychological complexity, it doesn't seem to have much knowledge of how humans feel or act. The big ending felt gratuitous and the final scenes morally questionable. It winning an Oscar is just another stain on what I already see as a murky award.

no, it's for me.