Die Fälschung (Volker Schlöndorff, 1981)

Bruno Ganz plays a journalist sent to Beirut to report on the Lebanese Civil War. The war correspondents venture out from their hotel safehouse to dodge cars and snipers in a city too busy eating itself alive to pay any attention to them, and the most effective scenes of Circle of Deceit are thus mostly the ones highlighting the randomness of the devastation all around, with a few more on the cynicism and amorality of the journalists' role also resonating. The problem is, however, that neither the actions or motivations of the main character make a great deal of sense. He jogs around blithely through the gunfire and witnesses the daily killings with nothing more than a frown of discomfort and when he does finally crack up towards the end, it doesn't feel like a dam breaking under an accumulation of pressure. Ultimately, Schlöndorff is guilty of the perennial sin of the well-meaning but self-involved western artist: the plight of the third world takes a back seat to the angst and pontifications of the artist, within whose soul the war of real significance is fought.

4/10