Squinting with your eyes open

Obviously, everything's going to be completely all right.

I don't have many observations to record about the chilly, dark spy picture Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (2011).  It seems to be less of a film, and more of a simulation of the experience of being a spy.  Nothing is stated outright, nothing is explained, no one is identified, no one reveals their thinking.  If anyone has feelings, you won't hear about it.

Even better, screenwriters Bridget O'Connor and Peter Straughan have dispensed with those two popular crutches of the modern spy film.  First, the voice-over of the protagonist, explaining the arcane non-verbal transactions going on.  You know the thing, "Sturgess gave me a glance that could only mean one thing" blah, blah, blah.  Second, the big explanation at the end, "You see, Collins, I knew as soon as I saw Verdoux wearing the ring, that Operation Fuzzball was going to be scrubbed, because..."  Clearly, the writers and director Tomas Alfredson (Let The Right One In) decided to have respect for the audience and challenge them to lean forward and come to the film, instead of being overwhelmed by it, as in a Bond or Bourne film.

The story is often referred to as "complex", but it's not so much complex as it is sub-contextual. Here is a very visual film -- the soundtrack by itself would tell you almost nothing-- the very opposite of a standard spy film, which is all explaining and a couple of gunshots at the end.  But the story is relatively straightforward if you understand two things.  In LeCarre spy stories, there is no there there.  It's never about a secret that has to be stolen or protected.  It's about the process of security -- who works for whom, who is who really who they say, who can be trusted and who will betray.  What they are protecting is immaterial and never discussed.  Questions of loyalty are about the security force that claims your allegiance -- MI6, CIA, KGB, not the countries who have created and harbor these forces. And loyalty to the very idea of security and the discipline security requires.  And the time sequence shifts, but that is clearly laid out in the form of Smiley dictating a memorandum, so confusion as to time only lasts seconds at most--if you are paying attention.

The characters communicate in literal and dramatic code.  Information is conveyed by a look, a shrug, a cock of the head, or of the eyebrow.  But the film is not slow.  Information arrives rapidly and in profusion, once you understand how to interpret it.  It is quiet, but densely packed.

My favorite shot--a recurring sequence of a packet of papers rising, by itself, in a sort of document-dumbwaiter, acknowledging that information is the real protagonist, that data is more important than people in this universe, deserving of its very own private elevator.

The film has a wonderful visual uniformity, oddly reminiscent of Welles's The Trial.  It was interesting to learn that that uniformity was achieved in a similar way as it was in Welles's film.  Nearly all of The Trial was shot in a single abandoned railway station in Paris.  Nearly all of Tinker Tailor was shot in an abandoned military base in England.  This provided a number of structures with a wide variety of purposes and spaces, but a single gloomy aesthetic that supports the tone of the film perfectly.

That's really all I can say.  The film has been too brilliantly dissected and explicated by David Bordwell, and if you are a serious student of film, you have to read "Tinker Tailor:  A Guide for the Perplexed."

My own parting advice-- don't watch this for relaxation, but for stimulation.  Put away the wine and brew some coffee.  The film is worth a little lost sleep.

The kids are not the problem

What writer-director Lisa Cholodenko has done in The Kids Are All Right (2010) is one of the oldest story-telling tricks, notwithstanding how nimbly it has been done. Howard Hawks pulled it off in His Girl Friday and cop shows like The Closer have been doing it for years: take an oft-told story and change the gender of one pivotal character.

Look, here's an idea for a movie: an adopted child reaching 18 wants to meet her natural father. The adoptive parents resist it, but finally give in. The natural father begins to integrate into the family, and finds a supportive, positive role for himself. The adoptive mother feeling bored and neglected, drifts into a relationship with the adoptive father. This almost wrenches the family apart, but the outsider is barred and the rest muddle through.

You've seen that movie, right? Or if not that one exactly, close enough to be bored by the idea. So let's make the couple lesbians, and make the natural father a sperm donor. Now we're interested. Why is that? Is it the sex? Certainly the implication that all a tired neglected lesbian needs is a quick hop into bed with a man is questionable and uncomfortable. Actually, awkward is the keynote of the film. The first meeting between Mark Ruffalo and his sperm-donor-kids was an essay in awkward worthy of The Office. And so, making the parents a lesbian couple just amps up the awkward. But just to make sure that the folks buy tickets to the movie, one casts heterosexual actresses. (The movie even makes an intramural joke about it as Jules disdains lesbian porn, "They use straight actresses and the lack of authenticity...")

These types of films tend to be all script and acting, that is, the technique is fine but unremarkable, because the director is much more focused on content than expression. However, I do want to point out a couple of remarkable moments. First, in the scene when Ruffalo and Moore have their first sexual encounter, it appears that the director uses shorter and shorter lenses as the scene progresses. The effect, especially in over-the-shoulder shots is to (apparently) shove the characters closer and closer to each other until they cannot help but fall into each other's arms. Odd how, while I did not anticipate that story turn at the outset, it seemed inevitable once Moore and Ruffalo were alone together. (Wishful thinking from someone who sees too many indie films?)

The other is the moment after Nic (Bening) has discovered her partner's infidelity, but must return to a family meal and preserve the niceties. Now the lens is very wide, very close, but the conversation becomes aurally distant, echo-y with a steady ringing, until Nic pulls herself together and returns to the room. I have had precisely that sensory experience upon receiving news I had difficulty accepting. That distance and ringing was perfect.

The scene in which a character receives life-shattering news--most commonly that of betrayal such as infidelity--that might be an interesting blog post in and of itself.

Speaking of blog posts, Kristen Taylor and David Bordwell, the best analytical thinkers about film around has been really captivated by Inception and have written about it brilliantly here. Read it, and if you don't regularly check their blog (the link is in my list on the right-hand column), you should.