In These Times

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• • 27 May 07
  • 11:57 am

  Unfortunately, I fear Slavoj Zizek's really thoughtful and interesting piece above does not entirely live up to its apt subtitle : "By tying the drama to a mere personal whim, The Lives of Others fails to capture the true horror of the GDR". The French quality newspaper, Le Monde, ran a month ago an interview with Hubertus Knabe, a historian and the curator of the former Stasi main prison and interrogation center in Berlin-Hohenschönhausen, now converted into a national Memorial. Knabe, I think, outlined more effectively the scenario's two fundamental weaknesses, because of which he had finally declined to help with …

  Posted to The Dreams of Others

• • 28 May 07
  • 4:17 am

  Re Diane's comment above : "Since when does fiction have to adhere to facts?" - Well, Hollywood's low standards do not have to apply to the rest of the world, you know. The point is "The Lives of Others" is a German film, NOT an American one, and thus one does not a priori shrug it off as just another mass-produced piece of illiterate fiction made for purely economic reasons. Indeed, as Germans have a reputation for painstaking attention to detail and lack of frivolity, one expects something closer to a documentary than to the wide screen rendition of a video …

  Posted to The Dreams of Others