Dir. Eric Rohmer, 2003, France, 115 mins, Subtitles
Cast:
Serge Renko, Katerina Didaskalou
Loosely based on true events, Triple Agent is a quietly fascinating account of espionage and ideology, set against the fermenting storm of approaching war in late 30's Paris.
Fyodor is an exiled White Russian General, living modestly in Paris with his Greek wife, Arsinoe, and ostensibly working for The White Army Veterans Association, a rag-tag band of Tsarist émigrés intent on reclaiming Russia from the Soviets. Each day, he glides around the emerging 'Russian Paris' of cramped offices, restaurants and makeshift Orthodox churches, filtering the various scraps of intelligence he gathers from his fellow exiles. This community of princes turned taxi drivers, ex-factory owners and army-less generals, pursue a struggle which seems pathetically extinct in a rapidly changing world. With their funds dwindling, the White Army exiles are torn between allying themselves to the fascists of Franco's Spain and Hitler's Germany, and the patriots of Red Russia who oppose them. Fyodor drifts through this atmosphere of ambiguity and vague unrest with an air of arrogance and acumen. However, he is not all he seems, and his true allegiance is always in doubt, even by his beloved wife. In fact, he cultivates this enigma, and revels in the suspicions people project upon him, even stating that: "Sometimes it's smarter to tell the truth than lie, because no-one will believe you."
While 30's Paris is satisfyingly recreated, Rohmer's film is driven by dialogue rather than images, consisting almost exclusively of interior scenes with people discussing the ebb and flow of the uncertain political landscape. For a spy film, there is no violence, car chases, or shoot-outs. Fyodor is no man of action: he uses conversation as evasion, constantly constructing new layers of deceit even as he denies them until, inevitably, his dissembling catches up with him.
Where the film succeeds is in its use of archive footage, an effective device which punctuates the narrative and contextualises this tumultuous era of European politics. These clips act as a tragic, historical counterpoint to Fyodor's conspiratorial manoeuvrings. In grainy newsreels, we witness the dread and uncertainty of the rise of fascism in Germany and Spain, the international Brigadistas on the battlefields of Andalucia, the shock of the 1939 Nazi-Soviet pact and poignantly, trainloads of young Frenchmen on their way to defeat against the invading Nazi hordes.
Against this era defining backdrop, Rohmer foregrounds the very human love story of Fyodor and his wife, which is slowly poisoned by the monumental world events playing out around them. The pull of history closes like a noose around their necks of these characters, leading to a final act of betrayal which is as wilfully ambiguous as it is cruel. At the film's conclusion, we are as unsure of Fyodor's true allegiance as any of the protagonists: was he spying for the Nazi's, the communists, the Tsarists or all three? Rohmer leaves us to guess his fate, and wonder at how much control he had over it.
Gus Alvarez
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