The Decomposition of the Soul

Name: The Decomposition of the Soul
Genre: Documentary
Released: February 7, 2007
Duration: 82 min
Rating: 65

2007

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Generally favorable reviews based on 10 Critic Reviews

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Movie Details & Credits

Release Date: February 7, 2007

Summary: This documentary explores the treatment of prisoners under the East German Secret Police.

Director: Massimo Iannetta and Nina Toussaint

Genre(s): Documentary

Runtime: 82 min

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Critic Reviews

100

TV Guide Magazine Ken Fox

Released simultaneously in the U.S. with Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck's Oscar-nominated fictional thriller "The Lives of Others," this chilling 82-minute documentary about three souls destroyed by the Stasi, the notorious secret police of East Germany, puts a cold, factual gloss on what might otherwise be taken for fiction. Read full review

Stanley Kauffmann

A documentary, thoughtfully made. Read full review

Nathan Rabin

Decomposition bears powerful, uncompromising witness to man's inhumanity to man, which is one of the most important things any documentary can do, though, it's also one of the most grueling. Read full review

J. Hoberman

The Decomposition of the Soul is a deliberately confining movie, but unlike "The Lives of Others," it offers no closure. Read full review

Ken Eisner

A thorny subject is handled with care in this meticulous reconstruction of life inside the East German police state, as boiled down to the experiences of just two ex-inmates -- one man and one woman --- of a notorious Stasi prison. Overall effect is poetically thought-provoking, not depressing. Read full review

David Edelstein

The decomposition of the soul is the goal of a Stasi incarceration, the promised end for an enemy of the state, and there is something about the movie’s pacing--the silences, the drone of the narration ("The name of your enemy is hope?…?")--that wears you down. Read full review

Manohla Dargis

This kind of glance at history is a poor substitute for a hard, steady and expansive examination. Read full review

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