The Lives of Others (2006)

Through headphones in an attic, a Stasi officer hears private life as a sequence of potential evidence. Conversation and piano music from the rooms below give the still, watchful man an experience the camera cannot reveal on his face alone. The distance between listening for incriminating material and listening to another person is the film's useful tension. It is particularly rewarding beside The Conversation, where technical access also proves different from understanding.