The Lives of Others

Soooooo I know you're all dying to know what film I saw yesterday. Yep it was the one in the title of this blog.

We went off to the Renoir Soho after a delicious lunch somewhere nearby - I'm not being deliberately cryptic here I just can't remember where the restaurant was - and picked up a couple of tickets for a movie I would never have chosen mysel.

There was a time when I used to go and see all the "arty" movies, if it had subtitles so much the better (I was in my 20's and going through a brief intellectual phase) but that really was a long time ago. The last subtitled movie I saw was Hong Kong Shuffle on the hotel telly in Bangkok last year.

So this one is a German film, set in 1984 and follows the tale of a Stasi officer who is eavesdropping on the country's leading playwright. Again, not a lot there to send me rushing off to the cinema. But my pal knows about these things and he said it was supposed to be brilliant.

He wasn't wrong. It was one of the most amazing films I've seen in a long time. I absolutely loved it. In my tradition of rating films by how soon into it I start fancying a fag, this one scores a 0 fag rating! It was about two and a half hours long too, which has gotta be a first for me.

I don't think it has a massive release, but if it's on at your local arthouse cinema get yourself down there.

One thing I noticed about the Renoir, apart from the fabulous cafe and comfy leather sofas where you can sit and wait, is that the majority of the people in there are people you never see at your local multiplex...I bet none of them has seen Superman 3!

Another bonus is that nobody was talking through the film, no crunching of popcorn, no mobile phone conversations...bliss!