Life affirming

Lives shows late-term Communism could not eradicate image of God | Marvin Olasky

To honor Alexander Solzhenitsyn I'd suggest renting a DVD of The Lives of Others, a German-made movie that won an Oscar as last year's Best Foreign Language Film. Yes, Communism sent Solzhenitsyn and others to the gulag, but it also created hellish everyday environments ruled by secret police like the East German Stasi.

You'll see that even Communism could not eradicate the image of God that remains stamped on craven creatures: A whisper of freedom set to music can make even a secret police captain weep. One of the film's corrupt Communists asserts that "people don't change"—but with God's grace we do, in ways hardly predictable.

You'll also see debut director Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck's perfect pacing and detailing of the story, set largely in 1984, of two men: a playwright who attempts to retain his integrity while remaining a favorite of Communist bureaucrats, and the Stasi true believer whose thinking changes as he -listens in on the playwright's private life.