Circle Of Deceit ( 1981 )

"... a balanced, thoughtful, extremely moving vision of wartime tragedy." - Janet Maslin, The New York Times

Shot on location in the still smoldering streets of Beirut, Circle of Deceit is a film of riveting tension and passionate eloquence now available for the first time on US DVD and video. Director Volker Schlondorff (The Tin Drum, The Lost Honor of Katharina Blum) combines war film verve, documentary immediacy and a "superb cast" (Christian Science Monitor) to yield a violent yet character rich film that´s both politically charged and personally moving.

Grateful for a respite from his imploding marriage, Hamburg newspaperman Georg (Bruno Ganz - The American Friend, Luther) arrives in civil war-torn Beirut to chronicle the bloody Lebanese war. Inside a shell-pitted hotel, Georg and his photographer colleague Hoffman (cult director Jerzy Skolimowski - Deep End, The Shout) join a cynical international coterie of competitive fellow journalists. Outside, they take their lives in their own hands, dodging both Christian and Palestinian bullets and conducting interviews that are always just a trigger pull away from becoming executions. When Georg´s affair with a beautiful German ex-pat widow (Fassbinder icon Hanna Schygulla) evolves into something more than just an indulgence, Beirut´s bloody whirlpool of brutality threatens to claim Georg´s neutrality and his civilized self-control.

Without taking sides or pulling punches, Schlondorff´s meticulous direction renders both the lethal chaos of urban warfare and the moral tug-of-war of modern Mid-East politics with equally sensitive precision. Probing an ethical minefield of journalism, exploitation, war and murder, Circle of Deceit) is hauntingly compassionate, shockingly realistic and "a superior film in every respect".

Upplagd i sortimentet: 20 Maj, 2006