The night air feels like a cold hug from an unwelcome stranger. As I turn to shield my face from the increasing stream of droplets, I notice the word “Stadhuis” painted on the large glass facade of a building supported by industrial steel beams. I think to myself that I must be mistaken in thinking that this is the town hall. It looks so…wrong. But upon asking, I find myself perplexed. This ugly architectural experiment truly is the city’s democratic center. This is where laws and practices are upheld, this is the home of importance and integrity – of democracy. Its outer layer of hideous industrial architecture does not at all correlate to the inner beauty of local democracy. I think of airy spaces, natural light, openness and plants. Not this. The town hall – the home of integrity – is lying to me. It tells me that it is merely an unimportant office building. What a lie!
But it makes me think. It makes me think about the play I just witnessed. The strange, incomprehensible play. In an alien language, served through an alien media. As I walk on through the rain and the streets of Waregem, I am still not sure I quite understand what just happened. Actually I am sure that I don’t understand it. But I think it makes me think. And I quite like that.
It makes me think about the play I just witnessed. About an old man misleading a whole group of documentarists. That was about all I got. My dutch is rather…inexistent. As he continued to dwell deeper and deeper into his own reality, he took the group with him in the fall. When they discovered that what he told them is not true, it is too late to change things. But the question is how much of a story the truth would have created. Not very much I think.
Once I was 11 years old, my grandmother sat me down and told me that she suffered from themedical condition Alzheimers – an illness slowly devouring her brain. Tearing it apart like a Lego house slowly being disassembled. Three years later, she died from it. When she died, I was on holiday in Berlin with my father. He got the call just a few minutes after her death. I remember it very clearly. When he returned from taking the call, I could see in his eyes that something was not right. Which was contrary to what he told me. It was not until three days later when we came home that I was told.
I wondered why as I felt a tear brushing my cheek as if trying to comfort me. It just added insult to injury. As if it wasn’t enough that my grandmother had died, I wasn’t allowed to know until it suited them. In the end, I came to the conclusion that it was kept from me so that it wouldn’t destroy the happy carefree holiday-feeling of being away. I eventually forgave him. Why should I be vexed with him, when all he was trying to do was to serve my best interest? What would I have gained from knowing earlier? The truth is often subjective. To me, not telling me was wrong – excessively. But still, it was an act of kindness and of love. Both at the same time.
And as so, lies can be divided into two categories: Deception and misleading. To mislead is the act of telling a lie with a harmful intention. Which I think we can all agree on is inacceptable. But to deceive someone can be kind. It can be done out of care for the best of interests. To protect. So safeguard. To enrich. To love. To make.
The Making of Berlin is a show I will never understand in its literacy. I don’t understand dutch. But I do understand human nature. And to take us along for the ride, to keep us in the belief that the story is real, is a very good way to show to all of us that lies aren’t necessarily evil. They can be entertaining. Or cultivating. Or even kind.
Osacr (Danmark)
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