AMD 5

For this AMD I watched, or rather rewatched, the excellent film "Das Leben der Anderen" by Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck. This is one of favorite films of all time, and I haven't watched it since starting German, so I thought it would be fun to watch it again now that I can understand some of the dialogue in its native form. The film is fairly well known, but it follows a Stasi officer who is instructed to monitor a well known playwright and his girlfriend. His life ultimately becomes inseparably intertwined with the people who don't even know he's watching them ("the lives of others"), and he is forced to choose between either his own career and well being or the morally correct path. Ulrich Muhe delivers a masterful performance as the conflicted Stasi captain, and von Donnersmarck has contructed a thrilling yet profound and emotional film. 

Much of the dialgoue in the film was fairly easy to understand, and I was able to follow a lot of it without the help of the subtitles. I did however look a few things up after the film to clarify. I noticed that Hohenschönhausen was used when referring to the Stasi prison, but it actually was a former borough of Berlin where they happened to have their prison, and not a word for their prison complex as a whole as I thought at first. I also looked up the full name of the Stasi, since they are always referred to by their abbreviated name in everything I've read/seen, like the Schutzstaffel being called the SS, so I thought it would be interesting to see what the full German word was. Staatssicherheit (state security) is the complete version, additionally the official motto "Schild und Schwert der Partei" (shield and sword of the party) was also referenced a few times throughout the film.