French television asked Godard to make a film about the state of solitude; instead he made a film about the solitude of a state. It is one of his most beautiful movies, and one of the most touching. A journalist recounts the visit to East Berlin of Lemmy Caution, portrayed, as he was in Alphaville, by Eddie Constantine. This last spy of the Cold War travels through a wintry landscape of mislaid memories and sites peopled with the ghosts of Germany's cultural past. Godard's cinematic alchemy conjures up a resonant cultural history. It's also a trip beyond the fallen wall. Godard never dwells on the enormous rift that separated Germany for forty-five years. Rather, this opus probes the question: how can a story-and by extension, history-be told today?