Film - Farewell

Farewell

Genre: Thriller

Starring: Emir Kusturica, Guillaume Canet, Alexandra Maria Lara and Willem Dafoe

Directed by: Christian Carion

Origin: France

Running Time: 113 minutes

Rating: M

Opens: October 14th

Score: 3.5 out of 5


People here are not often a political bunch. Unquestionably there is a spike in interest this month– mayoralties to be fought over road routes or amalgamation – but for good reason your average Top of the Souther will soon relax again. Truth be told, there is very little here in the way of intrigue; the unrelenting rants from certain letter-to-the-editor writers seem rather silly when contextualised. Nobody ever defected over the Rugby World Cup.

Fortunately history is the greatest provider of perspective and, for real intrigue, The Cold War cannot be beaten. Deception, murder, spying, nuclear weapons. With such skulduggery, it is no surprise that true-stories (or as close as you get in the world of espionage) take a while to get out. Even when those events helped change the world.

Based on the real life of Vladimir Vetrov, French political thriller Farewell is such a story. Set in the early 1980s, this is the history of two men, their families, and knowledge which accelerated the coming of a new age, perestroika.

Pierre Froment (Guillaume Canet) is a French engineer stationed in Moscow with his family. Unexpectedly, he is singled out by a high-ranking KGB officer to be his intermediary with the West. Sergei Gregoriev (Emir Kusturica) is disenchanted with increasing stagnation in the Soviet regime; he wants to effect change by showing America how much Russia knows. Ultimately planning to unmask Soviet spies around the world, Gregoriev hopes that the USSR will be forced to look inwards when its agents are rounded up and intelligence dries up.

At first the operation runs smoothly but with Froment inexperienced and Gregoriev’s home life undermined by infidelity the pair are increasingly strained. Pierre resents lying to his family but is forced by the French secret service (and growingly loyalty to his Francophile informant) to continue until the crucial list of agents is delivered.

The wider perspective is (a little clumsily at times) spelled out through “cameos” from Reagan, Mitterrand and Gorbachev. We are forced, in no uncertain terms, to understand the implications of this information. But with mounting weight on their shoulders and the KGB closing in, the reluctant comrades struggle to hold everything together long enough to protect their families and the fate of humanity.

Farewell is nothing if not meticulous towards authenticity and detail. Director Christian Carion, who also co-wrote, has added no explosions or high-speed chases to spice things up. Whilst this is to be commended, the result is a film that burns very slowly - undoubtedly too slowly for many. On this evidence, such extraordinary actual events seem rather mundane; and the absence of tension until the final act really proves the Achilles heel of an otherwise well executed film. It must be noted, regardless, that Emir Kusturica is as brilliant an actor as he is a director.

Farewell is a film with an amazing story you probably won’t have heard before. Despite its pace it remains essential viewing for the political animal; for others perhaps less so. The truth is that we are now programmed to expect explosions in spy stories, no matter how true they are. Back in Nelson, it has hard to imagine how real scandal (let alone explosions) would be covered by our armchair hacks. Let’s hope we never have to find out.