Not underrated....
This movie is DEFINITELY NOT underrated. The scenes with the diva ballerina are hilarious, especially at the end when she thinks the reporters are at the plane for her, and they're not.
shareI agree, it's a very strange looking film and very mechanical in execution. While certain individual scenes hold up, the overall effect is rather flat. Interesting to watch occasionally, but that's about it...
Regards,
Steve
Good points - I don't think this is underrated, either. In fact, I think it's only interesting as a historical insight to what people thought of East Germany/communism at the height of the Cold War.
One thing I thought was particularly bad was that the farmhouse in the middle of nowhere had a phone. It's not well-known, I guess, but in East Germany, even as late as 1991, only 10% of the homes in the major cities had telephones, and it was unheard of for a house in the countryside to have a phone. The telephone lines just hadn't been built yet for most of the country. I can't imagine any farmhouse in 1965 to have a phone. The chances of that are probably at best one in ten thousand. Besides, almost all phones were bugged during the Cold War anyway, so for a spy to use the phone would be inadvisable at best.
Yes, I agree. I also knew that there were very, very few phones in East Germany, and found that scene silly. Also silly was the fact that the taxi driver didn't think anything of this guy riding up on a motorcycle and entering the barn to meet with this American. Then the American leaves and not the guy on the motorcycle, and the taxi driver doesn't think anything of that?
How stupid was it that he draws the Pi in the mud and then just leaves it there. Omigod, that was dumb. And why did he need to have that meeting with the agent on the tractor? All he did was tell him the name of his contact. That could have been handled long before then when he was on the boat, in Copenhagen, in America, anytime before. And it would have made for a better picture if the viewer were kept in the dark longer before the big reveal.
Further stupidity is the machismo of the security guy in the farmhouse. "OK, you've had your fun, enough." WTF? That is just moronic. And when he opens the window and doesn't scream for help immediately? What, is there some disconnect between his eyes seeing the open window and his vocal chords? How incredibly dumb.
Also, the taxicab driver would definitely have been in the Stasi anyway, especially when you consider that 1 in 6 were in it. Who would be in a better position to know what people were doing than a taxi driver? Dumb, dumb, dumb.
I think I'll start another post on this topic.
I asked the doctor to take your picture so I can look at you from inside as well.