The Lives of Others (2006)

Also known as Das Leben der Anderen.
Deeply melancholy, darkly methodical, and effortlessly compelling, this slice of German film craft is a beautiful piece of sympathetic cinema. It's got almost all of the earmarks of a good paranoia spy thriller and political commentary, in this case being critical of 1984 East Germany's policy of radically extensive surveillance of its citizens in order to ferret out dissidents. What unfolds is a brutally slow-paced, but remarkably interesting interplay between a government spy and his completely unwitting target. It works extremely well, in a kind of polite One Hour Photo sort of way. While its painstaking pace can make it at times a chore to follow, the end result is stoically touching, satisfying, remarkably topical, and well worth sinking in to.

8 out of 10.