Learning to Lie 2003

In West Germany, 1982, 18-year-old Helmut falls in love with fellow pupil Britta. He joins a peace movement to get to know her better, attending meetings that reflect his idealism and a desire to belong to something larger than himself. Yet Britta suddenly moves to San Francisco to live with her father, and there she soon begins a new relationship that challenges the promise of their early connection. Back home, Helmut studies literature and politics in his hometown and starts a relationship with another girl from his former school, who is now studying medicine at the same university; their romance dissolves after he has an affair with her roommate, Barbara. He then drifts through a series of short affairs with different women, still searching for the first person who truly shaped his life.

Years later, in 1989, the Berlin Wall falls and the Cold War comes to an end. Helmut is lying in his girlfriend’s bed when his old school friend Mücke calls, saying he saw Britta in Berlin. He hurries to the capital and finds that Britta has changed and grown arrogant. Mücke reveals that he himself had an affair with Britta and that she has had many affairs, too. Troubled by this revelation, Helmut embarks on a fresh round of affairs, while his parents go through a divorce around this turbulent time.

In 1998, Helmut settles down with a woman who wants to have a baby, seeking stability after years of wandering. Yet he cannot shake the pull of the past, and he travels to Berlin one more time to meet Britta for a final encounter that will close a long chapter of longing, disappointment, and the shifting currents of a nation’s history mirrored in one man’s intimate search for love.