El espía honesto

I guess everyone is busy watching super heroes.

I quite like movies about East Germany before the fall, giving us a peep into a country run on coercion and corruption, the freedom of the individual disregarded.

Franz and Luise have no desire to get caught up in the world of espionage, but they are given no choice, and no way out.

It's a very well made film with some great performances and you get fully drawn in to the story.

The only problem really is IMDB's current policy of requiring reviews of at least 600 characters, which is well more than I need to tell you what you need to know about this. Just watch it, you don't need to know more. I realise it's to stop people leaving "it's rubbish" and "it's great" type reviews, but really, 600?

This is a so accurate document, so detailed about what the events exactly were in those times, awful period for Germany, before the fall of the wall. You can think about another film speaking of this very same era: DAS LEBEN DER ANDEREN, made in 2006. Not the very same story but as interesting for those who did not know this "socialist paradise". Not destined to wide audiences, so shame, because the production design, acting, directing are worth discovering. All the methods used by the German Democratic Republic authorities to spy, tail, and then nail people are here exposed with, I repeat, great accuracy. If you watch it closely, it may be a bit disturbing. All long this film, and especially in the second part, I thought of L'AVEU, from director Costa Gavras, starring Yves Montand.

An impeccable German production, from the costumes, editing, scripts, actors, but above all an incredible performance by Lars Eidinger.

This film covers the life of a man who ruined his life for helping the Stasi, the filmmaker Franziska Stünkel rescues the true story of Werner Teske (Franz Walter in the film). When Walter is sent as a spy to West Germany, it will not take him long to realize that the system to which he has sworn allegiance is not what it seems, as they will force him to carry out highly questionable practices, such as blackmail, psychological pressure and diagnostics forged.

Or somewhere else too - actually the movie is quite well told and it does have a lot of fears that it portrays very well. It does show us how the state is able to lure people in and make them work and spy on others. And them feeling like it is their duty. It also is revealing how when they finally realize what is actually going on ... it is almost impossible to escape the clutches of the state.

Quite the well made movie, with paranoia and a lot of thriller elements. Very well acted and an ending that might feel like a punch in the gut/stomach. Not for everyone and not an easy movie... at all.

After seeing this it feels impossible to rate it with anything but 10.

It's written after a true story, the last death sentence executed in and by the socialist DDR (East Germany).

But in reality the film is not primarily about this death sentence but about the "work" of eastern German Stasi and the coldness and brutality with which this regime tried to uphold it's socialist ideas in the face of public opinion, not hesitating to lie, manipulate and kill, ruining lifes in the wake of its political agenda.

The acting is absolutely brilliant, Eidinger plays the role with almost unreal intensity.

The story itself is something that should be known, especially in face of the nowadays often romanticized life in Eastern Germany.

It's not a feel good movie though....but it was not a feel good country either. Or only if you didn't look behind the scenes.

Please watch. It's worth it from beginning to end.

And it's a very relevant movie especially in times of the war in Ukraine and Russian propaganda at this very moment!