Satyen Bordoloi, reviewing ‘The Lives of Others’, says ‘there are parallel worlds on offer in this film’:

The film is symbolic in a lot of ways. It’s an Orwellian world and as if paying tribute to author George Orwell and his creation ‘1984?, the film begins in 1984, through to the final fall of physical borders and communism with the Berlin wall. The humour is caustic, with the funny moments used to extract people’s motives and degradations. First time writer director Florian Henckel Von Donnersmarck is suitably aided by a cast that gives a powerhouse performance, especially Ulrich Muhe who plays Wiesler and has been a discovery for cinema lovers world wide.

The film walks the tight rope of merging personal and political history. Yet, at the end of it, it is about personal choice under the hegemony of oppression, about the purity of ones beliefs, the conflict with the state out to stifle free speech, and the fight between doing what is easy, and what is right.