Best of Ever

Freed from the titles of 2013, we recently revisited two films from our all-time Top 10:

THE LIVES OF OTHERS (2006) (A) - Quite simply, a perfect film, from beginning to flawless ending. The debut feature from writer/director Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck follows a cadre of writers and other artists in East Germany being watched by the Stasi in the mid-'80s. Specifically, the target here is playwright Georg Dreyman, long considered to be generally pro-regime but still suspected of subversion, mainly through guilt by association.

His apartment is wired and bugged by a mid-level apparatchik, Wiesler, who perches in the attic, alternating 12-hour shifts with a bumbling underling, listening to the minutiae of Georg's life with girlfriend Christa-Maria. (One of the many fine lines in the film comes when Wiesler dutifully reports the aftermath of a birthday party in the apartment by noting that, after the couple is alone and becoming intimate, "Presumably they have intercourse.")

The film, though, is not about the effects of a totalitarian regime on the victims of its spying operation. This is Wiesler's story, and his humanity rises to the surface, as he slowly begins omitting from his reports incriminating information about Georg. As the conflicted Wiesler, Ulrich Muhe is brilliant. Martina Gedeck is also heartbreaking as the tragic Christa, who is forced to sleep with Wiesler's boss in order to maintain her acting career.

To say anything more would be to ruin the enjoyment of what is a profoundly moving human story, expertly told. When the impeccable final line is spoken, von Donnersmarck ends in freeze frame. The first time I saw it I wanted to cheer. On this most recent (third) viewing, I burst into tears. This is storytelling at its most fundamental and profound. 

THE APARTMENT (1960) (A) - On the brink of the "Mad Men" era (and certainly an influence on the AMC show), Billy Wilder fashioned this clever and touching comedy about a working drone who climbs the corporate ladder by lending his apartment to sleazy executives for their extramarital dalliances. Wilder is blessed with the brilliant Jack Lemmon and the exquisitely appealing Shirley MacLaine. He also has the lumbering Fred MacMurray playing against type as the heavy here.

I'll leave it to other folks who have reviewed and analyzed what was one of Wilder's most celebrated films. To me, the movie captures an era and a mindset with grace and oodles of humor. Wilder and regular writing partner I.A.L. Diamond stretch the corporatized jazz/beatnik patois at the heart of the film almost to the breaking point, and they go to the brink of maudlin in portraying the heartbreak of Lemmon's CC ("si si"? the perfect yes man?) Baxter and MacLaine's Miss Kubelik, but the creators never cross those lines. This film is most like my other favorite of Wilder's, "Ace in the Hole," in that it captures a zeitgeist and moment in time yet still feels fresh and modern in its message. In both pictures, every scene crackles.

"The Apartment" is shot in luscious black-and-white, and it is carried effortlessly by its two emerging stars under the direction of a filmmaker at the top of his game. It's a masterpiece, movie-wise.