Funeral in Berlin is the second appearance (and my darling, hence the election) of the mundane spy Harry Palmer after the excellent one (and already very raw in his plot of mental manipulation) Ipcress (1965) of the forgotten one gives hope to Sidney J. Furie and before to the pernicious one and stupidly paródica The brain for one trillion dollars (1967) courteousness of the hysteric Ken Russell (deducting the resurrection of the personage in the 90 with the television Bullet to Beijing and Midnight in San Petesburgo that they were recapturing to a semi-retired Palmer) and one of the works summits of the spies' movies during the fruitful 60 of the cold war. Contemporary of other splendid examples as Conspiracy in Berlin (1966) of Michael Anderson, in which George Seagal is sent to dismantle a small group neo-Nazi while very typical paranoiac of the talent is bossed around without any consideration by his Superiors in a plot for the nastiness of big writer Harold Pinter, Called for a dead person (1967), the sober one (and somewhat leaden) contribution of Sidney Lumet adapting the dark routine character of the essential one Him Carré, about the suicide of an agent and the later investigation entrusted James Mason or this abyss
of to the sordidness that is The letter of the Kremlin (1969), a magisterial work of John Huston unjustly forgotten and already commented here.
The matter in this occasion is more current than that of Ipcress (splendid the meticulous care for the details on the receipts and bureaucratic permissions that they deprive of any delight to the profession) and simple order involves Palmer with one, seemingly, in Berlin: to extract to a (assumption) Soviet deserter whom an unforgettable Oskar Homolka interprets in an entertaining and sibylline personage who will unite friendship with our protagonist. But of course everything will be much more complicated and thick as it is a law in the genre. The complicated story (with changes of identities, crossed agencies and gold Nazi for the way) accuses influences of the detectives' movies (the agent seems to be on tow, experienced and shaken for the plot from one place to other and is used without
any consideration) and a vitriolic sense of humor in his truthful description of an atrocious underworld, (wrecker in this sense the personage of Palmer's chief with genius interpreted again by an icy Guy Doleman who prunes, not the weeds but the flowers of his garden y) to the one of that it paints the portrait in a way as implacable as with thanks lacking in pretensions, what removes it positively from territories as leaden as that of the prestigious one The spy who arose from the frió, directed by Martin Ritt in 1965, (again an original of John Le Carré), for a terminal Richard Burton. 
In any case it is with this school of dark, sarcastic movies and brilliantly cruel it is with those that it is necessary to align to the creation icónica of big Michael Caine, distilled of genuine cool with his glasses of pasta, his mackintosh and this gesture that mixes indifference, cinísmo and irony, a memorable interpretation that turned the actor into star and certified an economic interpretive style in supreme grade. And this because, although he was born undeniably like an "anti-Bond" (produced the same way by Harry Saltzman with a view to not leaving hollows without covering) it has not anything in common with any type of parody: from the descacharrantes Fruit Pastilles pop del Flint de James Coburn or Matt Helm of Dean Martin, up to the hundreds of imitations of the “movie theater encore”, with things as 3-S-3 of Sergio Sollima and Giorgio Ardison, the French OSS-17 with direction, between others of Andrè “Fantomas“ Hunebelle and leading role for the Americans Kerwin Matthews or John Gavin, the epoch more desprejuicida of Chabrol and his Tiger with Roger Hanin, the triumphant Istanbul 65 of Isasi-Isasmendi or you even would cover them pulp of Jesus Franco and Eddie Constatine between multitude of products and by-products replete with shamelessness and wittiness. Anyway … for a very advisable small panorama the article of Carlos Aguilar dedicated to the spionistico in this marvelous miniature that is Done in Europe. 
Well on the contrary, it is a raw demythologization, which it opposes to the stylized parallel world of cinematic James Bond, a look on the spying where the dehumanization reigns and the treachery is the official currency. But, beyond superficial humorous notes (when it triumphs it does it with an Israeli agent, Eva Renzi, and it seduces it only because this one needs pair to come to his targets) or even of aspects of “struggle of classes” (Palmer is a working cockney and Bond an Eaton son), typology faces the two in a much deeper and less obvious level: Bond as perfect machine of killing of rampante amorality and cynicism, against a Harry Palmer (whose
name was invented certainly, looking also for one especially bland, for the movies since in the previous novels of Len Deighton he was lacking the same one) that not only is not glamorous, but, contrary to 007 it has an iron ethical code and a rebellious will; one of the most interesting points of the saga is that the protagonist is forced to be a spy by means of the blackmail; Palmer is a pilferer of small amount that pays his condemnation working for the MI6 and tries always to prove to be everything desganado and challenging that can.
To round the kinship with the exemption Bond the manager of guiding the direction is the handmade one (and discreetly) Guy Hamilton, one of the habitual manufacturers of the endless series (perfect example of idea for and for the 60 that it must never have gone out of the epoch for which it was conceived and in which his ways and spirit turn out to be natural and not a grotesque anachronism) that here realizes his best work, with a vibrant staging (copy the coffins exchange) helped by the excellent photo of Otto Heller who had already dealt with the first delivery and also of successful Alfie (1966) of Lewis Gilbert, who also would end up directing Bond with few grace in the still nice one Only one lives two times (1967) and in the unsuitable for smoking ones The spy who loved (1977) and Moonraker (1979) to me with Roger Moore disgracing. 
Funeral in Berlin (Funeral in Berlin)
The director: Guy Hamilton
Year: 1966
Country: Great Britain
102 min.
It photographs: Otto Heller
Music: Konrad Elfers
Script: Evan Jones according to the novel of Len Deighton Funeral in Berlin, 1964
I distribute: Michael Caine, Eva Renzi, Paul Hubschmid, Oskar Homolka, Guy Doleman, Hugh Burden, Rachel Gurney, Marthe Keller
Filed bajo:60's, British, Funeral in Berlin, Union of craftsmen, Guy Hamilton, I Spy, Thriller Tagged: action, Germany, anti-Bond, anti-hero, murder, cynicism, city, cool, crime, cruelty, dehumanized, spies, Funeral in Berlin, glasses, cold war, Guy Hamilton, Harry Palmer, Harry Saltzman, England, irony, Len Deighton, manipulation, Michael Caine, sixties, sordidness, spionistico, shots
No comments:
Post a Comment