His name is Ulrich Muhe. The director (Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck) says he is Germany’s best actor. For this film he could very well be the best actor in the world. A performance of such profound haunting human honesty it makes others seem like playacting. Wiesler—his Stazi investigator (East Berlin secret police) before the wall fell—is a devout patriot. A man who enforces the terror of communism with zeal. But when he sets his sights on a playwright of questionable loyalty—his faith crumbles under the privilege of spying on a good man, a real artist, who exposes him inadvertently to the first real art of his life. As he overhears a life truly lived he becomes besotted with the playwright’s wife, a beautiful actress, his troubled questing words, the music he plays, his need to get his truth out to the west. It is as if he had discovered the secret of life—a secret so precious he can tell no one. And ironically it is the world he lives in that is exposed as a corrupt, grey, mundane nightmare. It is an extraordinary film about the little choices we make, the choices that make us who we are.

More Baddaboom Reviews:

http://web.me.com/paddybon/Site/My_favorite_flicks.html