das leben der anderen

it’s difficult to acknowledge the finality of a path in life. after all, is it really a dead end? could it not, in fact, be just another stepping stone; another challenge to overcome in order to prove oneself worthy of the prize henceforth obtained?

despite living in a room full of good books by good authors full of tales of experience, success and woe, the words carry no strength; no guidance. for adjectives used in the context of life are rarely quantative - the relevance is unrecogniseable for someone who has no in sync benchmark. or rather in fact no person can lay claim to a truly accurate analysis and definition of their own personal experience; and given the diversity of people, time and placement, there is no box, no classification sufficiently small enough to encompass it.

this film bares partial relevance to my above statement in that it concerns a man who learns he has his own line in the sand; his own benchmark. it provides a blank overview of his responses and subsequent reactions to this acknowledgement, and even at the conclusion does not attempt to substantiate the choices made by labelling the outcome a ‘happy’ or ’sad’ ending. it is a singular section of a large and losely tied montage.

i liked the film. i’m not trying to be pompous or sound intelligent by the above ramble. it’s just that i feel the need to highlight where such an idea fits into my life.