Shadow Dancer

SHADOW DANCER              B+                  

Great Britain  Ireland  (100 mi)  ‘Scope  d:  James Marsh 

British director James Marsh loves suspense stories, where his taut directorial skills excel at creating an excruciatingly slow build up of tension leading to profoundly dramatic events, whether it be the breathtakingly elegant wire walker performance in MAN ON WIRE (2008) or the meticulously detailed police investigation in his episode of THE RED RIDING TRILOGY (2009).  Adapted by the author from his own 1998 novel by the same name, Tom Bradby spent three years (1993–96) as a Northern Ireland newspaper correspondent, covering the IRA ceasefire and the Northern Ireland peace process.  The opening twenty minutes of the film superbly demonstrate an economy of means, beautifully revealing the backdrop of the story with minimal dialogue, where in the early 70’s in Belfast a 12-year old sister sends her younger brother off to buy cigarettes on an errand her father requested she run for him, only to discover he’s killed as the innocent victim of crossfire shooting between soldiers and civilians.  Twenty years later, Colette, Andrea Riseborough from Brighton Rock (2010), is seen leaving a backpack carrying explosives on a stairway in a London subway station before making a daring escape.  Nonetheless, she’s arrested instantly and ushered into an interrogation room where Intelligence agent Clive Owen immediately gets her attention when he informs her that forensic evidence determined her brother was killed by an IRA bullet, before offering her a choice, get sent to prison for 20 years, separated from her young son, or return to her family as a police informer, reporting directly to him.  This introduction sequence sets the scene, a time when neither side trusted the other, there was however a thaw in relations and signs of hope from Prime Minister John Majors due to the departure of conservative hardliner Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher in 1990, the longest serving British Prime Minister of the 20th century, and no friend to the Irish, certainly not the Irish Republican Army, as in 1981 she allowed ten Irish hunger strikers to die rather than admit they were being held for political crimes, where the IRA would just as soon blow up one of her ministers than talk to her. 

It’s clear by this time in the early 90’s, however, with a ceasefire and peace agreement on the table, that the British Intelligence Agency had sufficiently weakened the strength of the IRA by successfully infiltrating every level of their operations.  With the inevitable outcome drawing near, with Sinn Fein entering into the political arena, this kind of Intelligence threatening leverage has a way of looming over one’s life, where all her family ever knew was trouble, literally shaping the mindset of her two brothers, Gerry (Aidan Gillen) and Connor (Domhnall Gleeson), both IRA trigger men, as well as her own violent past.  All living in the home of her widowed mother (Brid Brennan), did she want to add to her family’s grief?  When she eventually capitulates, they release her as if nothing happened, setting up regular meets with Owen.  After such a brilliant opening sequence, the rest never lives up to that level of intensity, quickly turning into a cat and mouse game of concealed information, betrayal, violent acts, behind the scenes power games, organizational deception, and confused allegiances.  Once the Intelligence Chief, a very Thatcher-like Gillian Anderson, thinks she has the means to take out several top level IRA leaders, Owen is mysteriously left out of the overall operations, insisting against the move because they will know the leak came from Colette, believing he was set up by his own operations.  Discovering they have a higher level informer in the IRA than Collette, Owen realizes that the sole purpose of recruiting her was never for information, but to have some “red meat” to throw the IRA investigators off track when they get too close to the real infiltrator, to keep them guessing. 

Curiously, the film evenhandedly paints a dark and murky picture on both sides, where the IRA's Kevin Mulville (David Wilmot) has the unsavory task of torturing his own people, ironically using the methods of the enemy, using waterboarding techniques when interrogating potential traitors.  A world where everyone is suspicious is a curiously strange and anxiety-ridden place, where one of the more chillingly conceived sequences is the military funeral service of an IRA member, where the British army stands nearly side by side with guns pointed straight at them the whole time.  In response, there is an IRA ritual commemorating a fallen soldier by hiding the guns and masking the potential shooters, and then having several members fire live bullets into the air as a sign of defiance and open rebellion against the British.  This is a beautifully staged stand-off that is exasperatingly offensive and couldn’t be more dramatically powerful, leading to still more plot twists down the road with devastating effects.  The moody score is by Dickon Hinchliffe of the Tindersticks, also writing the music for Debra Granik’s 2010 Top Ten Films of the Year: #3 Winter's Bone (2010).  Andrea Riseborough in particular is especially effective in an understated performance, remaining at the center of the moral quandary throughout, continually relaying her doubts and fears, always caught in the middle, certain she is suspect, uncertain of how to claw her way out of the desperate circumstances that she continually finds herself in, reminiscent of Ingrid Bergman’s role in Hitchcock’s NOTORIOUS (1946), where FBI agent Cary Grant blackmails Bergman into infiltrating a WWII Nazi spy ring.  Due to financial restraints, the film was actually shot in Dublin instead of Belfast, losing some of the historic authenticity, where this version is also surprisingly politically neutral, showing both sides to be equally merciless in their quest to root out terrorists and traitors.  Nonetheless, through restrained direction, reminiscent of the paranoid thrillers of American films of the 70’s, like Alan J. Pakula’s KLUTE (1971) and PARALLAX VIEW (1974), or Coppola’s THE CONVERSATION (1974), to name a few, the apt tension is there throughout in this gripping political thriller. 

The Iron Lady

THE IRON LADY                   C                    

Great Britain  (105 mi)  2011  ‘Scope  d:  Phyllida Lloyd           Official site

First we have a biopic on FBI Chief J. Edgar Hoover, J. EDGAR (2011), that suffers from selective amnesia, now followed closely on its heels comes a biopic on Britain’s first female Prime Minister (1979 – 1990), Margaret Thatcher, who herself is suffering from dementia throughout most of the film.  Both are iconic figures of the political right and both are despised by their opposition who they attacked ruthlessly during their autocratic rule.  Starring Meryl Streep and a good deal of make up allowing her to play Thatcher in her waning years as well as in her prime, it is a showy performance intended to shine the spotlight on Streep as a female King Lear figure, where the light is less flattering when shone upon Ms. Thatcher, who like Ronald Reagan in America, rode a populist trend towards nationalism, reaffirming people’s belief in being British, while refusing to negotiate or compromise with antagonistic opposing views, calling it a moral choice, such as trade unions (resulting in rampant unemployment) or the IRA (resulting in a flat out war with Northern Ireland, with Thatcher allowing the imprisoned Irish hunger strikers to die senseless deaths rather than be considered political prisoners), where perhaps the finest moment in the entire film shows Reagan and Thatcher dancing to the music of the Sex Pistols (like Nero as Rome burns) as the streets are bloody with endless demonstrations. Like Thatcher, Reagan suffered a similar fate with Alzheimers, where both went gently into the good night.  Thatcher seemed to have sacrificed everything in her rise to power, as her family life was all but destroyed in the process, finding herself alone in her twilight years flooded by memories and hallucinations swirling around her, often indistinguishable from reality, where she is constantly visited by the ghost of her deceased husband played by Jim Broadbent. 

While it adds a certain theatrical heft for Streep, too many scenes of Thatcher as a doddering old woman ruin the film, as they distract from what makes Thatcher unique in history, a woman breaking into an all-boys political network, which is nothing less than fascinating.  Irrespective of her political views, that’s an outstanding achievement of historical precedent and it’s easily the most exciting part of the film.  The bombastic music by Thomas Newman adds to a series of riveting moments when she stands up to the men in Parliament who attempt to heap scorn and ridicule upon her and brilliantly argues the Conservative side’s point of view, becoming the best spokesperson for her party because she passionately defends her positions.  The problem with the film is in the screenplay, which would probably work best accentuating the performance of the actress in a theater, who may hold the audience spellbound, but on film it spends too little time during the period when Thatcher was actually making history, brushing over those moments all too quickly with broad strokes, barely cracking the surface in terms of adding any psychological dimension.  Instead the movie recounts a few pertinent moments, offers a few self-righteous and indignant Thatcher speeches, shows a rumble on the streets happening outside as the population explodes against her austere business measures that put so many out of jobs and subsequently lose their homes.  It is a period where the rich get richer, while the poor suffer terribly.  Thatcher and the Conservatives have little sympathy for the poor, claiming each individual needs to climb out of poverty on their own without clinging to government for a handout, sounding more like class contempt than statesmanship.         

The British theater director Phyllida Lloyd is known for her work in opera, also the feelgood Streep musical MOMMA MIA! (2008), but makes exquisite use of a Maria Callas aria “Casta Diva (Chaste Goddess)” from Bellini’s Norma Casta Diva -- Maria Callas (Best) - YouTube, which is closer to the film version (5:44), or seen here in a live performance in Paris, 1958, also adding the follow up aria “Ah! bello a me ritorna (Beloved Return Unto Me):  Casta Diva (Maria Callas) - YouTube (9:25), shown during Thatcher’s dramatic, rose draped, exit from power, accentuating the precise moment when her reign is over.  Interestingly, during her elderly years, she’s more fascinated with Yul Brynner singing showtunes from The King and I, where she can recite how many performances played in New York and London.  One nice touch Lloyd brings to the screen is her initial obsession with feet, much like Bresson, where all are wearing men’s shoes except one pair of feet, which is a beautifully cinematic expression of making her entrance into the exclusive, all-male fraternity of British Parliament, where the “male members only” private chambers is a spacious, immaculately designed, crowded library and bar, while a glimpse into the “women members only” chambers is a lone chair and an ironing board set in the tiny quarters resembling a closet.  Compared to the era when Thatcher was remarkably making history, included among peers of international leaders where it was the Russians who coined the phrase “The Iron Lady,” the retreat to watching her feebly sitting at home in a darkened room watching home movies seems anticlimactic.  Too much time is spent watching her babbling to ghosts or fuss about what to wear, which diminishes her stature and makes her feel downright ordinary, missing an opportunity to become intimately familiar with what drove a woman of such unique stature.  Unfortunately, the film pales in comparison to the excellent, behind-the-scenes portrait of THE QUEEN (2006), which shows a woman struggling with her own place in history.