A The Lives of Others - ” the best surveillance movie since The Conversation,” according to one reviewer - showed up at my local theatre. This means two things. Firstly, I have to rent, borrow, or thieve a copy of The Conversation. Secondly & obviously, I’ll sit in on a showing of The Lives of Others one of these days.

The posters that my theatre is using to advertise this film includes two lines : “Nothing is private” & “Nothing is sacred.” The implication, I suppose, is that the sacred happens in private; & the violation of the private is a violation of the sacred. This is driven home by the images the poster employs : a rather drab&serious authority-type juxtaposed with the cool flesh&desire of the protagonist & his girlfriend.

Of course, the film is more than the poster & I haven’t yet seen the former, so my skepticism about the claim : “Nothing is private. Nothing is sacred.” : is aimed more at the notion that the presence of a well-protected border between public & private is only desirable than it is at The Life of Others.  It seems to me that a more robust discussion of what it means to exist visibly, in both public & private, would yank these distinctions, as well as the notion of surveillance, out a field that frequently conceptualizes the visible person as citizen, employee,  consumer, or child & the gazer as an official, employer, market researcher, or pedophile.

Anyway, I’m confused.  You’d think that the critiquing surveillance would be easy, but to avoid the “doom & gloom” position without finding oneself on the side that shouts about how great technology is & how perfectly adorable all this user-generated content is requires some finesse.

EP