I am not much of a movie-goer. But whenever I see a truly good movie, I feel life would be incomplete without watching all the good movies produced around the world — it’s the same silly wish about reading all the good books in the world after one has read a real gem of a book.

Sadly, India, despite being the largest film-producing country in the world, does not make many realistic movies that portray sensitive socio-political themes with the force of authenticity and creativity. It’s not often that Indian cinema holds a mirror to the tumultuous periods in our national history, enabling the old to relive a cathartic experience and the young to debate the rights and wrongs of that period. Has there, for example, been a single memorable movie about the Emergency, in the 1970s, even though India then came nearest to becoming a police state?

My source of good movies from around the globe is my friend Bharatbala of Vande Mataram fame, a filmmaker who is currently working on several creative projects. “I am sending you,” he said recently, “the DVD of a German movie called The Lives of Others, which won the Oscar last year for the best foreign language film. We are releasing it soon in theatres across India. It’s a must-see.”

It indeed is, for it shows how menacing a police state can be. But it is worth watching for another, more important, reason. For it also shows, in the tradition of all good art, how ordinary human beings can rise to great heights of heroism by listening to the voice of their conscience and making moral choices between right and wrong in the face of grave personal risks.

... contd.