'Ello 'Ello

I always wanted to see this film. Having heard an interview with the director Christian Caron, I wanted to see it even more. His description of the problems making 'Farewell' is enough to give any director, producer and 1st assistant the heeby jeebies.

The original lead actor pulled out at the last moment, the part was recast with director Emir Kusturica in the lead role. For me, this worked so well that personally, I would have preferred him in the lead male role for 'The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo'.

I love cold war stories and this one holds its own with the best. It is scary and skillful and tense like 'Gorky Park' and 'The Spy who came in from the Cold' and it is no surprise that it is based on a real story. The REALLY real story is much worse apparently and says little for our allies or our own security.

I thought the camera work and casting supreme and it brought back that very late cold war period with horrible clarity. It has the usual long trips into bleak winter landscapes under leaden snow filled skies which I remember from a few months spent in Finland as a child.

The idealism and hopeless dodginess of the amateur spooks winds up the audience like a spring and added to this, two devastating domestic lives which stretch and strain under the burden of the secrets the men are carrying. This is not just a spy story but carries with it a broader scope that even non spooks will react to.

Hurry, before it really is 'Farewell' for a cinema screening of this.

Click here to see the trailer of 'Farewell':