Circle of Deceit

Volker Schlöndorff's 1981 film is adapted from a novel by Nicolas Born. Laschen, a German journalist running from a marriage that has collapsed, flies to Beirut to write a piece. With his photographer he sees the everyday face of the war, and the question slowly shifts onto him: what exactly is a man doing when he makes copy out of other people's catastrophe. The film clears no side, the reporter least of all. Schlöndorff shot much of it in the real Beirut while the civil war was still going, and some of that footage now carries the weight of a document. Bruno Ganz, Hanna Schygulla and Jerzy Skolimowski star, with Jean-Claude Carrière and Margarethe von Trotta among the writers.