Director Anton Corbijn was in the screen at Edinburgh’s Cineworld for the UK premiere of his new film A MOST WANTED MAN – an adaptation of John le Carré’s 2008 thriller. The cast includes Rachel McAdams, Robin Wright, Willem Dafoe, and Philip Seymour Hoffman. The experience of watching Hoffman on the screen today is for some akin to that of James Dean fans in the 1950s, watching their idol on screen in REBEL WITHOUT A CAUSE, or GIANT, after the event of his untimely death.
The film regularly emphasises that it is depicting not only a contemporary Hamburg in a unified Germany, but a post-9/11 world in which the secret service are operating. One that is haunted by the shadows of Cold War-era security practices, and by their informers’ failure to detect the terrorists responsible for planning the 9/11 attacks. It also asks, is the America of Obama different that of Bush in its treatment of its European allies? In the light of the recent disclosures of phone-hacking Angela Merkel’s mobile, there is a definite ambiguity surrounding this question.
Hoffman is extremely impressive in his role as Gunther Bachmann, Unit Head of a small German intelligence unit. This is an English language film, with all the English-speaking actors wearing the best German accent they can foster. Hoffman’s is so good, however, that he not only upstages McAdams’ and Dafoe’s performances when he shares a scene with them, but even makes Daniel Bruhl sound like an Englishman putting on a German accent.
Hamburg has never looked quite as old and new on screen at the same time.
The cinematography of Benoit Delhomme is breathtaking. Hamburg has never looked quite as old and new on screen at the same time. Scenes move with clarity and direction from tiny dingily-lit dive bars, to strikingly well-illuminated, high-rise, glass window clad bars overlooking the city’s port. And for anyone with a love of Brutalist, post-war architecture, the building in which Bachmann’s unit is located looks at times like a giant, concrete Mayan sacrificial staircase, with balcony upon balcony peering down onto the next spook as he nips out for a coffee break, vainly hoping that no-one’s watching.
Cat and mouse politics play out constantly throughout the film, so much so that the denouement in the final five minutes of the film comes as something of a shock. The film could have concluded in any number of ways, such were the backstories and relationships being played out on screen. Fans of other le Carré adaptations such as THE CONSTANT GARDENER and TINKER, TAILOR, SOLDIER, SPY will not be disappointed with this latest offering to the canon. And Hoffman fans will thankfully get another chance to say goodbye, and appreciate just how damn good this captivating luminary of the screen and stage really was.
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