Fabian
Groys is a journalist and a compulsive gambler, so nobody should place their
trust in him. Nevertheless, he will play the role of crusader for truth, when
he is not pawning his Porsche to pay off gambling debts (evidently that is
pretty easy to do in Germany). We are not supposed to find it suspicious this
lefty journo drives such an expensive sports car either. All our mistrust
should be reserved for the shadowy “them” in Christoph Hochhäusler’s The Lies of the Victors (trailer here), which screens as
part of Kino! 2015, the festival of German Films in New York City.
In
between binge drinking and losing his shirt at the craps tables, Groys has been
working on an expose—something about German veterans from Afghanistan getting
shunted into crummy jobs at a super-connected waste disposal facility. The
details are about as hazy as his head and his Deep Throat source just bailed,
for obvious reasons. However, he stumbles across a backdoor into the story when
he has Nadja Koltes, the cute but naïve intern chase down some information on a
vet who committed suicide by throwing himself into the local zoo’s lion habitat.
Okay, that bit is pretty original, but guess where he worked.
Despite
this rather damning revelation, the shadowy conspirators manage to manipulate
Groys’ investigation. Eventually, Groys and Koltes land a cover story, but it
is a rather toothless bit of moralizing compared to the muck-raking he
originally intended. Unfortunately, once Groys realizes he has been played, it
is dashed difficult to get un-played.
Since
we see Groys inject his insulin within the first five minutes, everyone should
know it is a lead pipe cinch there will be some sort of blood sugar misadventure
before the film is out. Frankly, the entire film is like that. Many characters
simply exist to represent the military, corporations, and media, with all the
baggage that presumably entails. Arguably, Hochhäusler and co-writer Ulrich
Peltzer are so concerned with scoring points, they lose sight of the narrative
just as much as Groys does. Anyone who has been paying attention will wonder
about obvious loose ends he and Koltes apparently forget about when they grind
out their piece.
As
Groys, Florian David Fitz admirably dives into the film, never shying away from
the journalist’s self-absorbed nature and self-destructive tendencies. He also
develops some believably ambiguous chemistry with Lilith Strangenberg’s Koltes.
However, there are few legitimate characters to be found in the sprawling
supporting ensemble, rather mostly just stock figures.
