Frantic and Furious in the Berlin Republic: The Lies of the Victors, selected by Rüdiger Suchsland

A hamster wheel. It turns and turns and in it a small rodent runs for his life in a frantic and furious manner. These wheels have, in addition to the charm of the pure movement, the sinister quality, that as a viewer you sometimes wonder if it’s the animal driving the wheel, or actually an animal trying to keep pace with an ever faster driving wheel. System or individual, who decides in the end? That is indeed the question in Christoph Hochhäuslers new film The Lies of the Victors (Die Lügen der Sieger) one of the most interesting new German films.

The Lies of the Victors tells the story of Fabian Groys, an investigative journalist, who is working in the Germany capital for "a Hamburg magazine" (i.e. most probably Der Spiegel). Fabian traces political scandals in the postmodern Berlin Republic. Although he sometimes evokes the pathos and our forgotten memories of the untouchable, incorruptible researcher, all in all Fabian is in no way a revenant of Robert Redford’s character in Allan J. Pakula’s All the Presidents Men — whose heroic aura Hochhäusler cites, as well as he does with that films inherent paranoia.

More likely this Fabian seems to be an echo of the eponymous hero of Erich Kästner’s Fabian in Berlins golden age during the Roaring Twenties of the Weimar Republic: an indifferent decadent, a flâneur through his own life, and a gameaddict, who also plays with himself and his fellow-men, and who is curiously missing a basis in life. It is his work that sets the pace of his existence, and keeps Fabian alive at all. He finds peace only when looking at his pet in the hamster wheel.

The airy coolness of this hardboiled leading-man tracing a political scandal is crisscrossed with overheated images of Berlin nightlife with clubbing, illegal gambling-halls, fencing-fights and furious Porsche-rides though the urban jungle. It’s no coincidence that those city passages remind one off Walter Ruttman’s Berlin symphonies. New Sobriety is also the approach of a Lobbying-Agency, which is fabricating the political consensus with a no nonsenseattitude in grey suits, albeit with dirty thoughts.

Hochhäusler’s complex, superbly filmed movie is most of all interested in how loose impressions condense into a closed narrative. The director asks the question, what is actually real? You can accuse him that he gives away the idea of truth a bit too easy and — with his very general form of criticism — serves to the paranoia of the audience. One can argue about a lot here, but Hochhäusler at least asks the right questions, and his answers are challenging.

Rüdiger Suchsland studied history, philosophy and politics; is now a cultural activist and regular contributor and film critic for German national dailies (Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, Berliner Zeitung etc.), as well as the bi-weekly film magazine Filmdienst, for radio channels (deutschlandfunk, SWR, WDR) and websites (telepolis, artechock). As well writing at times for regional dailies, weekly papers and other magazines like revolver, Rolling Stone Mag etc. Curator of the film festivals of Mannheim-Heidelberg (international films) and Ludwigshafen (German films). Wrote and directed the documentaries Caligari — Expressionism and Cinema in the Weimar Republic (2014) and From Caligari to Hitler (2014) that premiered at the Venice Film Festival and was shown at many festivals including IDFA.

IFFR Critics’ Choice 2015: Rüdiger Suchsland (film: Die Lügen der Sieger) on Vimeo.