Farewell
Cinema Nova, 10/08/2010
Status: Behind by 13 films
Not sure about you, but when an actor is speaking French (or Russian, or Spanish, or Danish), I find it really hard to tell whether they’re a hack or not. In one scene in Farewell, French actor GUILLAME CANET has a shouting match with WILLEM DEFOE in English and, man, “overact” doesn’t even begin to cover it. He also speaks French and Russian in the film and seems a MUCH better actor in these scenes. Perhaps that’s the illusion allowed for by foreign languages, or perhaps he’s just uncomfortable shouting in English?
Anyhoo. I like espionage thrillers, and I like the old fashioned ones the best - it’s no wonder the Cold War went on so long without electronic documents and email - all this taping and transcribing of conversations, and having to develop film (film!) of photos of secret documents.
In Moscow in 1981 a French civilian engineer (named Pierre, CANET, who has never looked more like Patrick Dempsey) is shanghaied into espionage by a Francophile KGB double agent, (Sergei played by EMIR KUSTURICA) who is looking for a way to operate outside the bugged and triple-bugged CIA. He passes on incredible information about US state secrets and then paydirt - the list of American operatives who are double agents for the Russians. A list like that could - and indeed did - break the Cold War stalemate and force a new kind of relationship between the US and Russia. But at what cost to Pierre and Sergei?
As well as Pierre and Sergei, who develop a compelling personal relationship, the film features American intelligence operatives, President Regan, Brezhnev and Gorbachev, but I found that layer of the story fairly flimsy.
It’s clearly an over-dramatised, over-simplified version of the true story, but it’s interesting nonetheless. Plus, it’s mostly set in Russia in the 80s so everyone is wearing massive furry hats. I gotta give props for that.
