Paul Maximilian Schüller Movies
- 2008
A womanizing, muckraking Berlin journalist meets his match in the unlikely form of a children's day care owner in director/star Til Schweiger's breezy romantic comedy. Ludo (Schweiger) and his photographer Moritz (Matthias Schweighoefer) cover the Berlin celebrity circuit with a flair that's truly all their own, but a bad night reporting on a high-profile engagement party ends in the devil-may-care reporter sentenced to 300 hours of community service at a local day care center run by his former classmate Anna (Nora Tschirner). Klutzy former geek Anna doesn't care too much for Ludo due to fact that he once humiliated her back when the pair were classmates, but Ludo was so busy impressing girls that he barely even remembers the incident. Now it's Anna's chance to get a little revenge, and she wastes no time in giving Ludo the toughest assignments that she can dream up. But later, when Anna notices that there may be more to Ludo than ego and conquest, this mismatched pair begins to grow closer than either could one of them could have ever anticipated. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Til Schweiger, Nora Tschirner, (more)
A man who has devoted his life to ferreting out "dangerous" characters is thrown into a quandary when he investigates a man who poses no threat in this drama, the first feature from German filmmaker Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck. It's 1984, and Capt. Gerd Wiesler (Ulrich Mühe) is an agent of the Stasi, the East German Secret Police. Weisler carefully and dispassionately investigates people who might be deemed some sort of threat to the state. Shortly after Weisler's former classmate, Lt. Col. Grubitz (Ulrich Tukur), invites him to a theatrical piece by celebrated East German playwright Georg Dreyman (Sebastian Koch), Minister Bruno Hempf (Thomas Thieme) informs Weisler that he suspects Dreyman of political dissidence, and wonders if this renowned patriot is all that he seems to be. As it turns out, Hempf has something of an ulterior motive for trying to pin something on Dreyman: a deep-seated infatuation with Christa-Maria Sieland (Martina Gedeck), Dreyman's girlfriend. Nevertheless, Grubitz, who is anxious to further his career, appoints Weisler to spy on the gentleman with his help. Weisler plants listening devices in Dreyman's apartment and begins shadowing the writer. As Weisler monitors Dreyman's daily life, however (from a secret surveillance station in the gentleman's attic), he discovers the writer is one of the few East Germans who genuinely believes in his leaders. This changes over time, however, as Dreyman discovers that Christa-Maria is being blackmailed into a sexual relationship with Hempf, and one of Dreyman's friends, stage director Albert Jerska (Volkmar Kleinert), is driven to suicide after himself being blackballed by the government. Dreyman's loyalty thus shifts away from the East German government, and he anonymously posts an anti-establishment piece in a major newspaper which rouses the fury of government officials. Meanwhile, Weisler becomes deeply emotionally drawn into the lives of Dreyman and Sieland, and becomes something of an anti-establishment figure himself, embracing freedom of thought and expression. A major box-office success in Germany, Das Leben der Anderen (aka The Lives of Others) received its North American premiere at the 2006 Toronto Film Festival. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Martina Gedeck, Ulrich Mühe, (more)
