The Sound of Music

Is there any doubt that "The Lives of Others," the German film by the wunderkind writer-director Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck, cannot be considered anything other than a masterpiece? (Okay, so the guy is in his early thirties, but if it hadn't taken so long to secure financing, he could have finished "Lives" much earlier.) The central scene in the movie revolves around a piece of music, "Sonata for a Good Man," which is played on a piano by one of the main characters, a playwright, upon hearing that his good friend, a black-listed theater director, offed himself. The piece -- haunting, powerful, direct -- holds its own, but the money shot is the camera slowly but steadily circling the other main character, a Stasi officer spying on the playwright's home with a pair of oversized earphones, which ultimately lands on the face of the character, upon which you spot an unmistakable tear. It is a simple moment, yet moving.