I like spy films based on actual events,and this one is so. Pierre and Sergei, how they complete their missions, they are not James Bond, just normal people like you and me. And what attracts me most is that their ideology is really beyond our imagination. Sergei wants the Soviet Union to collapse in order to begin a new regime which will do good things for people, not the government now which is corruptive and full of bureaucracy. His action, in terms of law, is certainly betrayal of the country, but in a larger sense, he can, at least to a certain degree, be regarded as a patriotic.And Pierre, the normal social clerk is involved in such a large mission which lead directly to the collapse of the Soviet Union,that is what I admire most.

One night, Frenchman Pierre Froment, living in Moscow, attends his daughter's circus performance. He excuses himself for a moment to go to his car. As he sits in the driver's seat, he is surprised by an intruder with an interesting proposition. The messenger, Sergei Gregoriev, chooses the innocent looking Pierre because he had served a tour of duty in France. Sergei has fond memories of his time there.It is the beginning of the 1980s and Breznev is in control. Things have gotten so bad in the country, Sergei believes something is needed to bring change into his land. For that, he proposes an exchange of secret documents that Pierre will deliver to France to be passed on to the Americans. His reasoning is that by doing that something will result as the Soviets enemies will be outsmarted.France had just elected Francois Mitterand, a socialist to the highest office. He had all intentions of naming communists to the cabinet, something the Americans dreaded. As Mitterand is informed of Pierre's mission, he decides to cooperate with the United Nations. In doing so, he gets to discuss what is happening with Ronald Reagan himself, who is at first reluctant, until he realizes what a good thing has fallen in his lap.Sergei must do all kinds of secret maneuvers in order to copy the material for Pierre. He risks being exposed as a traitor with all the consequences that go with whatever punishment he gets. His situation at home is not exactly a happy one. He lives with his wife and a son that is going to the university, but who secretly loves everything Western, as most young people from his generation. In addition, he has his own secret life, a sordid affair with Natasha. His sacrifice for wanting to change the system will come to haunt his own life.Directed by Christian Carion, who gave us the wonderful "Joyeux Noel", the director keeps his excellent work taking thorny issues such as the one at heart in this film. The film surprises because it puts into context an unknown page of history as it celebrates the obscure protagonists that were instrumentals in what was the end of a totalitarian regime. The screenplay is based on a book written by Serguei Kostine with an adaptation by the director and Eric Reynaud.The film is totally dominated by Emir Kusturica, who is a notable director himself. His Sergei Gregoriev is one of the most compelling characters in recent memory. This was a selfish man that saw a nation in despair because of a rotten system. Taking things into his own hands, he foresaw what would become as a result of his actions. Guillaume Canet, also a film director who gave us the wonderful "Tell No One", makes an impression as Pierre Froment. The large international cast include some good actors. Fred Ward, Willem Dafoe, Philippe Magnan, the marvelous Nils Arestrup, Alexandra Maria Lara, among the supporting cast add to our enjoyment.The cinematography by Walther Van Den Ende as well as Clint Mansell's music score enhance the film. Director Christian Carion is a man to watch.

A film in which the two leading men are both fine directors in their own right is fraught with potential problems but both Guillaume Canet and Emir Kusurica turn in sound performances and finely judge their relationship allowing it to develop gradually. The director - who has a fairly decent albeit brief CV - The Girl From Paris, Joyeux Noel - clearly has a feel for the subject and is not afraid to pace things slowly - this is not aimed at the popcorn brigade in the Multiplexes - putting him much nearer to John Le Carre than Ian Fleming. It is, in fact, a true story albeit with the odd name change but punctuated with real world figures such as Mitterand and Reagan. For reasons best known to the director Canet's ex wife Diane Kruger - who also appeared in Joyeux Noel - is given a cameo as a jogger and the majority of the speaking parts - William Dafoe, David Soul etc - are little more so that the whole thing stands or falls on the two leading men and both are admirable.

A good if a bit talky spy thriller from France that fictionalizes the real case of Vladimir Vetrov, a high ranking spy from the KGB who in the early 1980s and under the code name Farewell gave to the DST, the French internal security service, a massive dossier of files that showed how the Soviets were stealing massively Western technology. The French decided to pass the files to the United States, a convenient thing to do since the Reagan Administration was very suspicious of president François Mitterrand having several communist ministers in his cabinet (Fred Ward has a funny cameo in the movie as Ronald Reagan; Willem Dafoe appears as the CIA director).In the movie Vetrov is called Grigoriev and is played by the famous Serbian director Emir Kusturica. For dramatic reasons, the importance of these files is exaggerated in the movie; they are said to include all sort of things, even diplomatic codes which they did not and the dossier is somehow connected with the decision to announce the Star Wars weapons program. In the film, and since embassy personnel was under surveillance from the KGB, the DST decides to use as a contact with Grigoriev a French engineer working in Moscow for the Thomson firm (who is played by Guillaume Canet as a nervous Woody Allen type guy; Alexandra Maria Lara plays his wife who is obviously shocked when she learns her nerdy husband moonlights as a spy).Directed by Christian Carion, who made the very good World War I drama Joyeux Noel the film is especially fine in the reconstruction of the early 1980s and especially the Soviet Union at the time (Moscow is shown here as surprisingly sunny; if a movie based on this case have been made during the Cold War, Moscow would have looked surely much more gloomy and sinister). A good effort.