Wednesday, January 18, 2012

Weakness in Each Other's Systems: Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy

I've seen Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy twice in the theater, and I still think I need another two or three viewings .

Tomas Alfredson has directed the most carefully executed and consciously understated movie to come out this past year. It is the most well-made movie to come out in several years, as a matter of fact. In a collective of spies vying for advantage over a world superpower (and, ultimately, one another), no thoughtfully considered gesture is wasted, no facial tic nor shifting of one's clothes is allowed to give one away to someone else, someone who might be monitoring meanings beyond words. Alfredson's dedication to John Le Carre's characters is so absolute that each spy's method of concealment is nearly his entire identity in this film: Smiley's reserve, for instance, coming across at first as formal British stiffness; or Bill Haydon's bluster and bravado, which hides the great secret of the film (and not just that he's having an affair with Smiley's wife, and knows that Smiley knows, and makes sure that Smiley knows he knows). Percy Alleline diverts attention away from his incompetence and gullibility with arrogance and an air of authority, while Peter Gwilliam plays the womanizer in the office and maintains a monogamous relationship in his private life. Gwilliam's relationship, like Haydon's bravado and Alleline's arrogance, is destroyed by Smiley's covert investigation of a possible double agent within England's Circus (the country's intelligence service)--and, ultimately, so is Smiley's esteemed reserve destroyed, breaking for one delicious moment near the end of the movie.

A brief, clumsy synopsis would sound thus: At the beginning of Tinker, Control (the man at the head of the Circus) sends a subordinate agent to Budapest to gather information on a mole in the organization. This mole, Control thinks, has been feeding information to the Soviet Union. The Budapest mission is botched, the agent presumably killed, and the resulting scandal forces Control out of the Circus. Accompanying Control into forced retirement is his second, George Smiley.

Now idle and alone, Smiley takes morning swims in the Thames and purchases new glasses for himself, while another agent, Ricki Tarr, resurfaces from Turkey--whence he was believed to have gone rogue--to present corroborating information obtained from the Soviets that there is indeed a traitor among the Circus spies. A minister pulls Smiley from inaction and the unassuming man, with the help of Peter Gwilliam and Ricki Tarr, begins a spying operation on the Circus from the outside.

Because there is very little verbal exposition in the film (aside from Ricki Tarr's explanation of why he remained in Turkey so long--to save the life of a Russian woman), much of the thrust of the story comes from men acting small and saying very little. These men watch, listen, remove files, inspect logs, and perpetually smoke and drink. It has been noted that Smiley, the film's main character, doesn't even speak for the for nearly twenty minutes into the film. Early on, when he exits the Circus with Control after they've been forcibly removed from their offices, each man's regard for the other upon parting is evident, even though nothing is said, hardly any movement made. A brazen smile that Bill Haydon gives to Smiley during a Christmas party takes on a chilling and tragic meaning later in the movie. A viewer need nearly be as cautious, and observe as closely, as these spies watch one another--I felt particularly rewarded when, during my second viewing, I interpreted a detail as significant and it turned out to be significant, not just the busy work in which actors engage when in movies. Alfredson gets loads and loads from the tiniest actions: Smiley's hand on a stair rail as he enters a house, a wood chip lodged in a doorway.

Maybe the commercial success of Tinker will allow for more films of the same caliber to be widely released in the multiplexes. The nuances of film making are maximized in nearly every scene, the viewer rewarded for paying attention instead of merely being coddled into suspending disbelief. And Smiley makes for one of the greatest heroes to trudge across the screen--an unassuming bureaucrat and man of violence, cuckolded and pure of heart, noble and of staggering intellect and insight.  

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