Living Vicariously
Outside it's bright and blustery, the last sunny day before a major nor'easter threatens to flood most of the region. I hurry around the neighborhood running my weekly errands and dropping in on one of the few CompUSA stores that won't be closing in the next 30 days.
I return from dinner at a local diner that had great atmosphere, fantastic garlic mashed potatoes but overcooked and therefore chewy grouper, and mentally settle in for a night of reading. But before I part the pages of "The Children of Men," I flip open my laptop and check email.
A friend who's been out of the country for several weeks asks if I'm free to see "The Lives of Others" ("Das Leben der Anderen" - QuickTime trailer) at the Angelika in SoHo.
The runtime is 2 hours, 18 minutes. Oh, what the heck.
I dash for the subway with instructions from Hopstop — instructions that turn out to be unreliable due to rerouted train service and my own disorientation at being south of 14th Street, where the grid stops and directional hell breaks loose.
I am above ground and realize I have no bearings. I am late. I am lost. And then, a sign: I am approaching the Lincoln Tunnel. If I keep going in this direction I will walk to New Jersey. Wrong way.
My friend is patiently waiting for me as I race to the theater steps, apologies tumbling out of my mouth.
The cinema is jammed and the room is dark, so we pick two seats together at the back, behind a rather tallish couple whose heads keep swaying back and forth as though buffeted by breeze. I find an eyeline I can keep, but my poor friend plays a dodge game with the guy in front's head, which means the people behind my friend have to do the same.
"The Lives of Others" is slow. Deliberate. And not to everyone's taste. Some in the audience leave, rising quietly from their seats in ones and twos like hot air balloons that float toward the exit.
I keep my focus on screen, trying not to miss anything, taking in as much of the German dialogue as my weak grasp allows me. (Translations rarely equal what's actually said.) But what I do understand is that this film without special effects, fancy set design or flashy celebrities is art.
(Listen to "Die Sonate vom Guten Menschen" by Gabriel Yared)