THE LIE

The former minister sings. Her bodyguards watch her._Four years ago the Minister for Migration in the Dutch parliament announced in front of rolling cameras that her fellow party member, the MP Ayaan Hirsi Ali had lied on her asylum application. There were calls for Hirsi Ali to have her right of abode and her citizenship revoked. It was a real scandal._THE LIE is a coup de main. It is both a documentary film and a musical. The film’s protagonists don’t just talk and answer questions; they also each sing a song that has been composed for them. It is not radical to blend these two genres together; what is radical is that the film leaves it up to the audience to decide whether this mixture is a success or a failure. As a finale, the bodyguards dance.