Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (Review)

Spoilers Ahoy!

Tomas Alfredson directed one of the finest vampire films of all time--Let The Right One In.  After that, I expected great things.  Let us get one thing out of the way right now--he did not disappoint.

It helps that he chose a truly stellar cast with which to bring John Le Carre's spy drama to the screen.  Many of you may have seen the BBC miniseries starring Sir Alec Guiness.  Those who have not, should!  But don't forget to watch this version as well.  And let yourself be amazed, particularly by Gary Oldman as the anti-James Bond.  George Smiley, rather than a dashing womanizer excellent at all form of death and mayhem, is a calm professor type, a detective of sorts who sifts through all the tedious details to find the treasure.  Rather than good with women, George has an extremely troubled marriage--yet one can see in Oldman's eyes how much he genuinely loves her, and how in giving himself to that vulnerability he ends up hurt.  Yet it is also what makes him worthy of victory.  Not his the courage of the man who doesn't give a damn.  Quite the opposite!


All this emerges as part of an intricate web, one distilled from a fairly heft novel into two hours with considerable skill and success.  Not a movement ends up wasted.  Every detail matters, and we quickly learn that lesson.  One of my favorite little bits from early on is when George is in a car with two other men, and a bee.  They try to swat the bee away.  George, he just watches it.  Then, as it gets near the window, he opens that window to let it go.  At the time, I was most impressed with his calm intelligence.  Later, I recognized a man fundamentally good--and like any such man in a trade that consists of deceit and manipulation, conflicted by it all.  Yet...brilliant.  Later in the film he has to lie to someone, a lie utterly necessary, in some ways kind, but also ruthless.  We could see him bleed a little bit in telling that lie.  But he did it.


The details.  I cannot emphasize not only how important they are in this tale, but how skillfully we are drawn to notice them!  At a certain point I found myself noticing a man's tie.  The color.  The pattern.  Turned out there was a clue in there. 

Likewise, simple action of train tracks shifting intercut with Gary Oldman's face told us so much!  Bravo!

Essentially, the story (set in the 1970s, right in the heart of the Cold War) tells of an investigation of a "mole" or double agent somewhere at the top of British Intelligence, aka The Circus (its hq is in Piccadilly Circus).  The title refers to codenames given the suspects, based on an old nursery rhyme:  Tinker, tailor, soldier, sailor, rich man, poor man, beggarman, thief.  Suspicion of such a thing is dismissed as absurd fantasy.  But then a bit of evidence brings former Deputy Director of the Circus George Smiley out of forced retirement.  He's given a mission by those above and outside the Circus--find the truth.  And he does, knowing one of four men must be a traitor.  One of them is now the head of the service.  Another once had an affair with George's wife.  Many and sad are the betrayals in this story.  Wonderful and fascinating are George Smiley's efforts to learn the truth, among other things by letting people lie to him then spotting it.  All the while, lurking deep in the background, is the legendary Soviet Spymaster known as Karla--a brilliant fanatic whom George met once, many years ago.

The miniseries was more subtle in some ways, but the film comes across as clearer.  Beneath the surface of all this remains the beating of human hearts, and therein lies the tragedy of it all.  The power.

And in a way a little weakness.  I wasn't surprised upon learning the identity of the traitor.  Then again, I already knew.  But really, who else could it have been?  Along those lines, I will say the magnificent Ciaran Hinds was criminally underused.  Which happens sometimes with a really fine actor ends up in a supporting role.  Same thing happened to him in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.  Benedict Cumberbatch does an excellent job in a meatier role, elevated to rather more than he is in the book, a tragic figure in his own right.  In fact, that brings up what makes TTSS so effective and so different from stuff like Mission Impossible or the Bourne movies.  People in this film cry.  They have reason to.  And some of them weep without shedding a single tear.


Some folks will mutter about "nothing happens" or won't follow be able to follow the story.  Their loss, really.  I predict plenty of Oscar buzz for this film.  Among other things I feel greater and greater excitement at seeing more of Alfredson's work.

Polish Carmilla (Part of Blog Tour)

Today begins The Annotated Carmilla Blog Tour, in which the subject matter of my book The Annotated Carmilla shall be addressed all over the web.  You are invited.  Also, you are invited to watch this, the uber-rare Polish Television adaptation of Le Fanu's Carmilla.  Since it is unlisted and will be deleted come the end of the blog tour (October 12, 2011) here may be your only chance to see this flick (other websites in the blog tour are listed below):



The Facebook Page of the Tour
Vampires.com
Mystical Book Blog Tours
Chastity's Romance News
Night Tinted Glasses
Search for the Lure
Dustin Bishop
Suburban Vampire
The Graveyard (the Lair of Gary James)
The Ramblins of Amy
A Paranormal Lover's Point of View
Eventide Envisions
Kay Dee Royal - Paranormal & Erotica Romance Musings

Dream (Super) Team

Forgive the wild and crazee speculation...

Many may not be aware of this, but DC Comics is in the process of re-booting their entire line.  That's right, decades of continuity tossed out the door in favor of a fresh start.  All characters and back stories have been re-imagined, starting over from scratch (and in the process wiggling out from under a lifetime of convoluted continuity).  Marvel Comics did something similar awhile back, creating an alternate line dubbed Ultimate Marvel for purposes of exploring how things might have gone differently.  Marketing ploy?  Definitely!  But also, an attempt to re-energize a creative world, make characters more fresh, experiment with ideas and styles.


But I've decided to let my own imagination run loose, picking and choosing from a variety of different sources my own dream team of superheroes!  Pure self indulgence!  I know!  But FUN!  So without further ado allow me to introduce the mighty Earthguard!

First, Nite Owl from the graphic novel and motion picture Watchmen.  Many who first saw this character in the movie trailer saw what one commentator called "a weak sauce Batman."  True, the overall look of this man harkens back to the Dark Knight, and in terms of fighting skills he's easily the equal of Bruce Wayne.  Likewise, he's a gadget man, but not as elaborately as the Caped Crusader.  In fact, Nite Owl began as a version of the Blue Beetle, which most obviously shows in his flying craft "Archie" (short for Achimedes).  Yet this hero evolved into very much himself, the son of a wealthy corporate lawyer with no interest in following in any parental footsteps.  Rather, he loved the world of myth, of legendary heroes and how they still live in us with our reaction to this world.  Case in point--the original Nite Owl!  Daniel Dreiberg had a serious case of hero worship with the beat cop who donned a mask in the 1930s to defend citizens from gangsters in the middle of the Great Depression.  When Hollis Mason, the first Nite Owl, unmasked himself and wrote his memoirs, Daniel found his calling.  Longing to live in an age of heroes, he decided to become one, taking on the mantle of a modern version.  Yet he remained, as one person put it, "the most human super hero," someone never quite sure of the answers (and thus less likely to commit atrocities in the name of an ideal).  His compassion and loyalty were never more shown than at the end of Watchmen, when he alone wept at the death of a his tormented almost-friend, the borderline sociopath Rorschach.

Second, Vampirella!  Her origins remain obscure, and in my own mind remain utterly mysterious (because the one given her at first frankly made not a lick of sense and has been ret-conned more than a couple of times).  Essentially, she is a vampire, but one without a past.  She cannot recall a time when she was not a vampire, yet her memories do not go that far back.  Certainly this world and its people seem alien to her.  Yet although instinct tells her to see us as nothing but food, she refused.  Desperately seeking to control her thirst, she makes it her task to combat and defeat several mystical forces of pure evil.  One of these is the dread demon CHAOS who plans to mate with Vampirella, allowing it to manifest in this world.  Another longtime foe is none of than Count Dracula!  Yet for all that, Vampirella in many ways remains a young woman just trying to get by.  Her "secret identity" is a magician's assistant to a faded but kindly old stage illusionist named Pendragon.  One can see the brilliant Nite Owl developing a blood substitute for her (as was done in the comics, predating True Blood by decades!)--the man of science fighting along side this lady of mystic mystery and menace,

Next up, Invincible from Image Comics.  A mere teenager, Mark Sebastian Grayson is also the son of Omni-Man, a member of a super-powered race who came to Earth and became one of the premiere heroes of the age, marrying in the process.  Then one day he murdered nearly every other member of the world's greatest super-powered team (pretty much identifiable as Batman, Wonder Woman, the Flash, Aquaman, etc.).  Turns out his people were preparing an invasion, with him as an advance scout.  But his son refused to accompany him offworld, vowing to defend his world from his father's people.  Talk about issues.  Talk about a burden!  Mark faces up to that challenge with a smartass attitude and an dogged determination to do the right thing.  Fortunately, he has the kind of powers that stand him in good stead as he slowly learns how to be a successful defender of humanity--hyperspeed, extreme strength, incredibly high endurance, and the power of flight.  Although the youngest member of the team by far, in terms of raw ability he is likely the single most powerful person not only among them but possibly on Earth.

Green Arrow from DC Comics began as essentially a retread of Batman--wealthy playboy who fights crime in his spare time.  Over time, though, that changed.  Methinks maybe the reason for that is mostly his motivation.  Unlike Bruce Wayne, Oliver Queen suffered no childhood tragedy.  He had no issues to work out.  Rather, as his entire life shows, he was a born adventurer -- who happened to be an Olympic level archer (literally--he has gold medals).  He found his bliss, as it were, going out and fighting the good fight.  Along the way, he enjoyed quite a few non-masked adventures including a shipwreck and more than a few love affairs.  Methinks he holds the record for superhero with the most illegitimate children (be fair--upon finding them he generally tried his best to be a good dad).  An older man (he's probably the oldest person in this team, with the possible exception of Vampirella), his experience translates into cunning.  Green Arrow hardly ever uses 'stunt' arrows.  Doesn't need 'em!  Atypically, he also has a clear political agenda, being an advocate of the downtrodden with plenty of contempt aimed at the corrupt or simply callous of his own class.  He'd be something of a father figure for Invincible, as well as (to some extent) Nite Owl.  Maybe.  He'd love to flirt with Vampirella, but be ever ready to pierce her heart with a wooden shaft ... just in case.

Finally, I would include Storm of Marvel's The X-Men.  Several reasons, some technical.  One is that her powers make her unique -- essentially psychic control of the weather (coupled with skills learned as a thief in the streets of Cairo).  For another, she is what the others of this team are not--a natural Leader.  And she has points of connection (sometimes startling) with the other members.  For example, she too traveled the world and had many adventures before becoming a hero.  She has been homeless, a thief, a teacher, worshiped as a goddess, offered a throne, been bitten by Count Dracula and can personally take on almost anything inside the earth's atmosphere. 

This has been an exercise of the imagination.  I invite you to do as much--who would your supreme team of superheroes be?  I went after a balance of powers and story-telling potential.  You might prefer a different take.  Either way, enjoy!

The Debt (Review)

Spoilers Ahoy!

Was fortunate enough to see an advance screening of The Debt, a 2011 film starring Helen Mirren and Jessica Chastain.  The former of course has become a legendary actor, while Jessica Chastain shows every sign of becoming her equal.  She makes an excellent choice to play Rachel Singer in her twenties, as Mirren portrays the same character three decades later.  Rachel is one of a three-member Mossad team sent to East Berlin in 1967 to kidnap a war criminal known as "The Surgeon of Birkenau."

(Parenthetically, this character would appear to be based somewhat on the infamous Dr. Jozef Mengele, while the operation itself echoes the successful capture-for-trial of Adolf Eichmann)

With Rachel are David (Seth Worthington and Ciaran Hinds) and Stephan (Marton Csokas and Tom Wilkinson).  One she will grow to love.  The other she will marry and by whom have a child.  Eventually.  Which makes a good opportunity to mention that, despite what some might claim, The Debt is not primarily a thriller.  Not at all.  It has plenty of thrilling elements, but first and foremost the story makes a drama--the drama of three individuals pushed to their limits by extraordinary circumstances.

The film periodically switches back and forth between 1967 and 1997, the latter when Rachel's daughter's book about the famous operation sees publication.  Coinciding to this is are a series of events that threaten to reveal a secret all three former agents swore to never reveal, never even speak of again.  Like many such vows, it ends up un-keepable.

As far as the world knows, the three found the notorious Dr. Dieter Vogel (Jesper Christensen, probably best known as Mr. White from Quantum of Solace) hiding under a false name in East Berlin.  This detail I'll admit gave me pause.  Of all the places to hide, behind the Iron Curtain seems one of the last places a Nazi war criminal might go.  Not that it couldn't be explained, but I wondered.  Maybe that was best.  It felt like the kind of inconsistent detail with which real life abounds.  At this time Rachel endures what has to be the most harrowing scenes in the entire film.  Imagine submitting to a gynecological exam from someone who used children as lab rats!  Stripping.  Putting your legs into stirrups.  Allowing that man to touch you in such an intimate place.  He behaves politely, professionally, even kindly.  But by then we the audience know, and not merely because we saw pictures of his victims.  We know because of the look in Jessica Chastain's eyes, the tension that reads like revulsion in every cell of her body.

Sadly, the rest of the movie never equals those scenes.  Maybe it couldn't.

What the three share is this.  According to official accounts, their method of extracting their subject was compromised, forcing the three to stay hidden in a dingy apartment for weeks, keeping watch over their prisoner who never lost an opportunity to needle them (this seemed just a touch cliche--the evil master manipulator a la Hannibal Lecter).  During Rachel's watch, he managed to get free, in the process wounding her very badly, leaving a permanent scar on her face.  Before he could get away, she managed to shoot and kill him.  They disposed of his body and snuck out, eventually returning to a hero's welcome in Isreal.

The truth?  She never got off a shot.  He got away.  Terrified what it meant for them, and maybe also for the prestige of Isreal itself, Stephan persuades the others to go along with the lie, figuring Vogel with disappear and spend the rest of his life looking over his shoulder.  Stephan throughout has been the most ruthless of the three, willing to abuse Vogel, then seemingly helpless.  David had been the most idealistic, the lone survivor of his family, but for that reason (perhaps) the most vulnerable.  Thus Vogel succeeded in getting David to explode in anger, beating their prisoner and breaking a bowl--a shard of which led to the escape.  Blaming himself, shocked at his own lack of control, he went along.  Rachel, the youngest and least experienced of them, ultimately did the same.

What of the most striking things about the film is how one can compare the younger and older versions of these characters.  All look haunted, worn, tired.  Mirren's Rachel seems now the strongest, able to handle things and seeing with an increasingly-clear vision the whole situation.  Wilkinson's Stephan looks like a man grimly following his life's path, aware too late he did the wrong thing but having learned little more than that.  Hinds' David, though, looks like a ravaged soul, one on the edge of self-destruction.

The modern tension of the story deals with David's suicide, evidently linked to a news item about an elderly patient in the Ukraine claiming to be the Surgeon of Birkenau.  Here, while done with sublime competence, the drama falls just a little flat.  Why?  Because we don't feel any surprise.  By the time Rachel sneaks into the hospital to see this man who says he is Vogel, I knew there were only two options and which was the many times more likely, more formulaic.  That was the one played out.  No, this wasn't Vogel.  That she very nearly killed him before learning this shocks Rachel into writing a confession and leaving it for a journalist she knows is en route.  Following that was the next bit of formula (again, executed very well) in which it turns out Vogel is indeed in that hospital.  The very elderly man seeks to kill her, but she fights back and this time accomplishes what she failed all those years ago--killing the butcher of children many decades after his crimes.

Now consider for a moment all the other possibilities here.  What if the old patient had been Vogel, then she killed him and couldn't live with herself?  Or if she didn't kill him, but saw him as pathetic beyond belief, yearning for a bit of fame, and she manages to convince the reporter he's an insane old man?  Then, for her own purposes, comes clean and tells the truth?  Or what if Vogel revealed himself because he's in terrible pain, longing for death, and figured this way he'd get those who wanted him dead to do him a favor?  What if she did it, out of pity?  All those would be far more interesting, compelling that this plot.

No complaints about the utterly stellar cast.  Really.  Splendid the lot!  But director John Madden as well as writers Matthew Vaugn (who pulled a crucial dramatic punch in Kick Ass as well) and Jane Goldman (ditto) all need to learn to take some chances.