FALLING APART

The Decomposition of the Soul

November 9, 1989: Down went the Berlin Wall, dragging the weight of the entire German Democratic Republic along with it. Authoritarian governments fall hard, and this one hit rock bottom with the resounding thud of oppression that had lasted half a century. The government's clandestine security team, the Stasi, had developed wildly demoralizing techniques of deconstructing the ideological resolve of citizens imprisoned for supposedly harboring politically subversive opinions. When the regime collapsed, Stasi officials destroyed numerous incriminating documents, but for the prisoners subjected to the tortuous mind games, the experience remained firmly imprinted on their psyches. This cruel psychological permanence provides filmmakers Nina Toussaint and Massimo Ianetta with the abstract framework of The Decomposition of the Soul, an experimental documentary that fascinates despite its structural flaws.

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