The true story of a national hero turned tunnel digger during the height of the Berlin Wall crisis.I am a firm hater of sub-titled movies, and over dubs are annoying. But "Der Tunnel" is one that I will watch over and over again. The story is one we all heard about and know from years of political struggles between ideologies between the East and West. It's much more than "a tunnel movie" about escape, it's a love story, a suspenseful thriller, a story of corruption, of passion, hopes, dreams, and desires. And it's also closely accurate to those who lived it.This is a must see!

This turned out to be a great movie, much better than I thought it would be. I am a fan of the spy movies of the 1960's, and this movie fits into that genre (but not quite). I am a fan of the cold war era, too, with Berlin and the wall and all that, so this movie was great to watch. There are a few things I didn't like, but they were minor, which is why I gave it an 8 out of 10.I was watching this with a buddy, and we both got caught up in it and were on the edge of our seats wondering if they would get away with it, and was much more thrilling that I thought it would be.There are several very touching scenes where people get shot, and people are looking over the wall, reaching down, trying to grab their hand and pull them up, while the shot man is gasping, whispering how he had to get over the wall before he lost his girlfriend...it was very freaking' sad and moving, especially the way the filmed it, very cool.It gets slow a few times, dabbling in the romance between two characters, but I am used to that in movies now. The version I saw was in German with English subtitles, but luckily I speak German. I thought the main character was very like Bruce Willis.

There are a few things that don't seem to be logical. 1. Harry changed into a soldier's clothes, and none of the soldiers seemed to notice that they have a new person in the group. Even after he got into the trunk, and sat with the soldiers together, none of them said anything about this new solider. 2. If they are afraid of informers, how come they were not worried about the coffee shop owner who might call the police and report them? 3. Why did the boyfriend try to run toward the wall for nothing? He certainly can't climb the wall during daylight hours without being shot. 4. They always have a person or two spying across the buidling in West Germany, how come the Easter Germans never noticed? This is film is about 3 hours long. Even though it is not boring, I feel that it might be able to tell the same story in 2.5 hours. Unlike that other good movie "goodbye Lenin," this movie is very intense, there is no funny moment. The music is well done, it fits the mood very well.It is shocking to see how the East Germany people were willing to do anything just to escape to the West side. It made me think how many East Germans were killed while trying to escape. And did their life get any better after they escaped to the west? Western Europe seems to have a long tradition of democracy. It is a surprise to see how the same German people working for the Eastern Germany government can be so cold. They lost their basic human kindness. The soldiers were ready to shot anyone to death who dares to cross the border. Under the communist rule, even friends, husband can be forced into spies who spy on their own loved ones. The ending is very tear jerking. I have seen several films about the Berlin Wall. They are all very good.

This is an exceptionally well-built film with a subject more than worth the effort, well delimited and well illuminated. Teaches a lot, by showing, not saying. Truly beyond praise.Der Tunnel illustrates how it felt to live in East Germany in the years before the Wall was built, how it felt once it was built, and the terrible determination of some people who escaped in the first few days, to make their escape serve others in East Berlin by trying to bring them to the West, even if the attempt should cost them their own lives. The film's primary power lies there, in the testimony value of each of its frames.I lived for a few months in Germany less than four years after the events shown, within a walk from the East German border. I visited East Berlin several times and traipsed (illegally) into East Germany once. Der Tunnel shows truths I would never have found the words to explain, and shows them in a way anyone can feel, if perhaps by watching the film more than once. Another film that is instructive on some of the same topics is Volker Schlondorf's semi-fictional Legends of Rita, well worth watching after Der Tunnel. (Legends of Rita takes place in the last years before the Wall fell, more than 20 years later.)One note. In Der Tunnel, the more people are compromised by the East German regime, the more they invoke their conscience and their deep-felt personal opinions. (You might call this the Lutheran variant of Stalinism.) This occurs equally in Legends, except that in the latter the character who is totally "political consciousness"-driven is the West German Rote-Armee protagonist, who does nothing but meaningless murders until she escapes to the East and, there, is kept under control. So, in Legend, the various East German security people come off better with their "conscience" than does the truly-awful protagonist. In Der Tunnel, they don't come out as well. As for the diggers, they never talk about conscience or opinion at all. That they will do everything in their power to save their loved ones from the regime is simply obvious to all and never discussed.A second note. The only non-East-German involved in the digging is an American undercover operative. Despite working, no doubt, under the same constraints as his opposite numbers, he shows as much determination as any of the other diggers, and perhaps even more courage.Concerning Marcel's ending query -- The Colonel stops at the border sign because doing anything beyond the sign would lead to major diplomatic embarrassments, and naturally to demotion or worse for him. He certainly can't kill all the witnesses (and has no intention of doing so). This is the same mechanics that explain why the American operative, after being caught in the East by the Colonel's services, is only detained for a spate of days, with no torture nor bad treatment except cold and isolation, and then released. (He carefully avoided engaging in anything like espionage.) These rules were known to all at the time (self included).