A Light Beneath Their Feet [2015]

MPAA (PG)  Fr. Dennis (3 1/2 Stars) 

IMDb listing

A Light Beneath Their Feet [2015] (directed by Valerie Weiss, written by Moira McMahon) is an excellent Hollywood quality, locally set, indie "coming of age" drama about a high school senior, Beth (played magnificently by Madison Davenport), growing-up in Evanston, IL, trying to navigate her way between her college dreams (of going away to UCLA in California) and taking care of her mother Gloria (played again magnificently / convincingly by Taryn Manning) suffering from bipolar disorder.  Dad (again played quite well / convincingly by Brian King), divorced from Gloria, was remarried and expecting a new child with his new wife Julie (played by Kali Hawk). The film played recently at the 2015 (51st Annual) Chicago International Film Festival.

To be honest, I don't particularly like the "central conflict" (impossibly far UCLA vs mom) in the film or the film's portrayal of the families in the story (all "nuclear" at best).   If there were no grandparents, no uncles or aunts to say nothing of siblings "in the picture," then Beth's departure at the end of the film for UCLA (left thankfully somewhat ambiguous, though it's more-or-less clear where the film-makers seemed to want her to go) would _definitely_ consign mom "to a home" (if at her age, late 40s, one would even exist).  It's hard to imagine an alternative.

THAT SAID, this is a film DEFINITELY WORTH WATCHING.  And since the director, Valerie Weiss, was present for Q/A after the screening, I asked, honestly, if they, the film makers, considered at all making a sequel as the setup of the dilemma was excellent, it's successful playing-out would be the challenge.  To this Ms Weiss answered that they have been looking into pitching the idea of following up the film WITH A TELEVISION SERIES.

I think that would be _great_, because in my line of work as a Catholic priest, I KNOW that there'd be MILLIONS of people / families that could benefit from watching a family struggle with this dilemma of caring for a family member who is truly _borderline_ ... someone who is _almost_ able to take care of him/herself (but _definitely_ not quite), or is able to take care of him/herself _in some things_ but NOT in others.  I would also suggest looking at some of the "telenovelas" of the Spanish channels, because this kind of television series would seem to me to be "more familiar territory" to them.  

In any case, I think that the topic of this film is excellent, and I hope that much more is done with it in the future as MANY, MANY PEOPLE / FAMILIES could benefit.


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In the Underground [2015]

MPAA (UR would be R for language)  Fr. Dennis (4 Stars)

IMDb listing

TimeOut Chicago (M. Smith) review


In the Underground [2015] (directed by Zhantao Song) is a well shot documentary about the life of a mining community (both above ground and below ground) in China today.  The film recently played at the 2015 (51st Annual) Chicago International Film Festival.

I didn't come to the film with a great deal of expectations, 'cept that it was playing at noon (for a discount) on my day off and I generally find anything that is set "a little off the beaten path" (NOT in London, NY or Paris, or in this case NOT in Beijing / Shanghai) interesting.  This film necessarily had to take place "in the (Chinese) provinces" and hence I did expect to learn something.  And did I ;-)

First, the cinematography was actually outstanding.  Near the beginning, the director takes the Viewers with an elevator load of miners down from the surface, several thousand feet, to their "actual place of work." When the elevator started moving down, the sky was still visible at the top of the elevator shaft.  By the time they reached their destination, "the opening to the sky" seemed about as large as a small "star in the sky."  It made for a remarkable intro to an almost necessarily remarkable film.

I would imagine that miners from throughout the world would probably appreciate more the technical details of the film.  To a layman like me, the hydraulic pylons holding up the roofs of the passage ways that the miners passed through looked both relatively modern and (eeek... ;-) "crooked" / "slanted" at times.  I honestly don't know how much of that was simply "well that's the way it is in a mine (any mine)" (or simply dangerous).  But I certainly left the film with an appreciation of some of the dangers of being a miner, period.

The film also followed the lives of some of the miners above the surface along with their families.  ONE THING that REALLY SURPRISED ME (and would PLEASANTLY SURPRISE READERS here) was an extended treatment given TO A FAIRLY LARGE CHRISTIAN COMMUNITY, MEETING IN A FAIRLY LARGE CHRISTIAN CHURCH in this Chinese mining town.

The director, a truly happy-go-lucky guy, very happy to have been given the opportunity to show the film here in the United States, was present for Q/A after the screening.  I therefore asked him AS A CATHOLIC PRIEST about the Christian community pictured in the film and whether such communities "were common" "in the Provinces" outside of China's major cities.  The director smiled and responded that he DOESN'T KNOW OF A SINGLE COAL MINING COMMUNITY IN CHINA (and there SEVERAL HUNDRED OF THEM) that DOES NOT HAVE A LARGE CHRISTIAN COMMUNITY PRESENT THERE.  He added that the Church shown in the film was built by miners' families (wives and mothers) themselves and again underlined that there simply isn't a Chinese mining community anywhere in China today that wouldn't have a large Christian community associated with it.

I COMPLETELY UNDERSTAND THIS.  Mining is a dangerous occupation and I just can't imagine how either the miners below or their families above could function WITHOUT an "outlet for prayer."  My own Religious Order, the Friar Servants of Mary, was built around the devotion to Our Lady of Sorrows ... the loved ones around a family member who's in danger or dying.  We have a Saint, Saint Anthony Pucci, OSM who promoted this devotion in coastal Italy to families of fishermen who again risked their lives for the sake of earning a living for their families.

So I left this film happy as can be to have learned something of China that I didn't know before.  I've heard that Christianity HAS GROWN in CHINA (and, in fact, despite persecution in the Mao Zedong years of China after the Revolution, it grew even then).  But folks, CHRISTIANITY MAY BE GROWING "IN THE PROVINCES" IN CHINA EVEN FASTER THAN ANY OF US COULD IMAGINE.  And that is honestly wonderful news ;-)

Now if it would seem that the film was ONLY (or even predominantly) about the Christian community in this provincial Chinese mining town, that would not be true.  THE FILM IS ABOUT THE LIFE OF THIS MINING TOWN -- The film-makers follow the miners to taverns after their shifts to document some of their conversations / letting off steam after work (hence why the film would probably get an R-rating, due to their language in said scenes ;-).  The lives / going-ons within some of the families of the miners is documented as well.  Some of the street-life / festivalscelebrated in the town (including lovely and very traditional Chinese "street opera") is portrayed.  And after a miner died in mining accident, a quite traditional Chinese funeral for him is followed as well.  What I wish to say here is that in the midst of this _very Chinese_ town a large and vibrant Christian community is portrayed AS PART AND PARCEL of that community and that I found remarkable and honestly wonderful ;-)

I love "International Film Fests" ... ONE _ALWAYS LEARNS_ something NEW ;-)
 

* Reasonably good (sense) translations of non-English webpages can be found by viewing them through Google's Chrome browser. 

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Nahid [2015]

MPAA (UR would be PG-13)  Fr. Dennis (4+ Stars)

IMDb listing
Cinando.com listing
Sourehcinema.com listing*

Iranian Film Daily interview w. director

APUM.com (A. Saéz) review*
aVoir-aLire.com (M. Rivière) review*
Kino-Zeit.de (K. Doerksen) review*
The Hollywood Reporter (J. Mitzner) review


Nahid [2015] [IMDb] [Cin] [SC]* (directed and cowritten by Ida Panahandeh [IMDb] [Cin] [SC]* along with Arsalan Amiri [IMDb]) is a lovely critically acclaimed personalist drama from Iran that played recently at the 2015 (51st Annual) Chicago International Film Festival.  It won the Un Certain Regard - Avenir Promoteur Prize for New Directors at the Cannes Film Festival this year.

The film is about Nahid (played magnificently in the film by Sareh Bayat [IMDb] [Cin] [SC]*) a 30-ish Iranian woman from the mid-sized Iranian port city of Anzali on the Caspian Sea, who's in the process of divorcing her "good old boy" Iranian husband Ahmad (played again quite vividly even wonderfully with his quite obvious if sincere flaws by Navid Mohammadzadeh [IMDb] [Cin] [SC]*) roughly her same age.  We're told in the course of the film that the two had "married young."  And the two had one child, 10 year old Amir (played by Milad Hassan Pour [SC]*).

Now why is Nahid divorcing her husband?  And an American / Westerner could be surprised to learn that an Iranian woman could initiate divorce proceedings against her husband at all.  We tend to have an image of Islam that suggests that women would have little or no rights at all.  But defenders of the Islamic Iranian regime have _always protested_ (to those who would hear them) that Shiite Islam is _not_ chaotic, that it has a clergy, a heirarchy, _follows rule of law_.  Now that law could perhaps seem to the Westerner quite / very paternalistic, but it would be wildly unfair to characterize Iranian Shiite Islam as simply chaotic or despotic.  (Truth be told, I would suggest that Shiite Islam especially as it exists in Iran could be could be compared to Catholic Christianity, which _also_ has an well educated / trained clergy, a heirarchy and comports itself according to Rule of (Canon) Law).

But back to the original question.  Why is Nahid seeking to divorce her husband?  Well, while certainly not evil, indeed, quite fun, liking to mix it up at (and bet on ...) soccer games, Ahmad has had his issues.  He's been in and out of rehab (for heroin addiction) for years, and yes, he's had a gambling problem, and is now owing money to all sorts of unsavory types all over town.   And well, Nahid has had enough ... and the Islamic State, contrary perhaps to (initial) Western prejudice, DOES SEEM TO UNDERSTAND cases like this / cases like hers.  Hence a woman like Nahid does have legal recourse to file for divorce against her husband (something that, again, would surprise many Westerners).

Another thing that may surprise many Americans / Westerners is that Nahid and Ahmad, after 10 years of marriage, have ONLY ONE KID.  Indeed, every one of the families portrayed in this film (as well as in the five or six other Iranian films that I've watched / reviewed over the course (now in its 5th year) of my blog) has been relatively small, with only one or two, perhaps three kids.  This also runs against American / Western perceptions of Iranian society (conflated here with Muslim society in general) that assumes that Muslim families are generally enormous.  That Iranian families would seem small suggests that Iranian couples would have to practice some kind of birth control and, again, that Iranian women would have to be afforded a greater amount of rights / consideration than many Americans / Westerners would initially believe.

Still, Nahid's situation was by no means ideal.  It is clear in the film that Iranian (Shiite inspired) law assumes that a woman divorcing her husband would return to her family, in Nahid's case to her brother.  Now again, Nahid's brother is NOT evil, indeed, he's a decent enough guy.  But it's clear that Nahid would prefer to not go back to him, and she's found herself a both a job (as a typist) and a small flat for her and her son.  There's even a rather rich widower (who runs a beach-side hotel at the town) named Masoud (played by Pejman Bazeghi [IMDb] [Cin] [SC]*) with, again, exactly one young, 8-y.o. daughter, and Masoud like to marry Nahid once her divorce goes through (and she's not necessarily opposed, though worries about losing custody of her son as a result).  BUT HERE'S THE PROBLEM: Iranian (again Shiite inspired) law presupposes that Nahid getting ALL THESE THINGS -- getting the job, getting the flat for herself, even remarrying -- would involve _getting approval_ from the various "men in her life," that is to say, her husband that she's divorcing, her brother and even as time goes on Masoud.  And as the film progresses, it becomes patently clear that Nahid, would really like to be an Iranian "Mary Tyler Moore" [wikip] [IMDb] (from a mid-sized "northern town with snow" in Nahid's case in northern Iran) and "make it on her own ..."

How does it end up for her?  As a mild spoiler alert, I'd say NOT ALTOGETHER BADLY (this is NOT a movie that ends tragically), but IT'S CLEARLY NOT EASY.

OUTSTANDING FILM!


* Reasonably good (sense) translations of non-English webpages can be found by viewing them through Google's Chrome browser. 

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Red Spider (orig. Czerwony Pająk / Červeny Pavouk) [2015]

MPAA (UR would R)  Fr. Dennis (3 1/2 Stars)

IMDb listing
FilmWeb.pl listing*
CSFD.cz listing*
FDB.cz listing*
CinEuropa.org listing

Film.onet.pl (K. Kandukska) review*
Film.onet.pl (D. Romanowska) review*

APUM.com (E. Luna) review*
The Hollywood Reporter (S. Dalton) review
Variety (P. DeBruge) review

Red Spider (orig. Czerwony Pająk / Červeny Pavouk) [2015] [IMDb] [FW.pl]*[CSFD]*[FDB]* (directed and cowritten by Marcin Koszałka [IMDb] [FW.pl]*[CSFD]*[FDB]* along with Łukasz M. Maciejewski [IMDb] [FW.pl]*[FDB]* based on the original work of Marta Szreder [IMDb]) is an excellent Polish / Czech / Slovakian psychological / crime thriller set in late 1967 Communist era Krakow, Poland (the late 1960s having been a time of relative liberalization in the Communist bloc, before the crushing of the Prague Spring across the border / mountains (south) from Krakow in neighboring Czechoslovakia).  The film played recently at the 2015 (51st Annual) Chicago International Film Festival and will play again at the upcoming 2015 (27th Annual) Polish Film Festival in America here in Chicago in November.

The film here combines / conflates stories of two of the most notorious serial killers in modern (if still Communist Era) Polish history:

The first was that of Karol Kot [en.wikip], who came to be known as "The Vampire of Krakow," a (high school) student from that city, who over the course of two years (1964-66) terrorized it, attacking, in separate generally individual knifings, both children and the elderly, killing two of them and injuring 10 others before being apprehended.  Shocking was his age as he was only in his late teens (he apparently completed his high school exams - maturoval - in jail while awaiting trial).  Clearly his psychological state was called into question.  But after thorough examination, he was declared completely sane and was executed by hanging in May 1968, being one of the youngest convicts executed in modern / Communist era Poland.

The second story used here was that of Lucian Staniak [1]*[2]* who came to be known as "The Red Spider" (the title of the film) who was said to have terrorized Katowice in neighboring Polish Silesia in a similar fashion at roughly the same time.  He gained his moniker by reportedly taunting the Press of the time with "letters written in red ink and in a spidery script." However, HE appeared to have been simply an "urban legend."  Now _how_ could a serial killer turn out to be a fake?  Well, to this day, no one is really sure who Victorian England's Jack the Ripper was.  In the case of Poland of the mid-1960s, it was a Communist county, in which information was heavily controlled.  As authorities looked for an actual killer in Krakow, rumors about similar murders taking place in basically "the next Province over" (Silesia) could have metastasized there.

Whether there were there actual murders in Silesia, like those attributed to "The Red Spider" at all (or were they also made up like the Red Spider himself). is not clear to me.  What is clear however is that there were actual attacks and murders in Krakow attributed to Karol Kot [en.wikip] who came to known as "The Vampire of Krakow" and he, young as he was, was, after a judicial process, sentenced to death / executed for them.

To the movie ...

The story's about a young man from Krakow named ... Karol Kremer (played by Filip Pławiak [IMDb] [FW.pl]* [CEu]) a high school, "all city" competitive diver, hence "quite excellent" though not necessarily of "national championship" caliber.  Now diving does involve a bit of "risk taking" and we also see early in the film that Karol does tricks with a motor bike (today, we would see someone like him do similar tricks with snowboard or perhaps skateboard).  He also comes from an utterly nondescript family.  Okay, he seemed to be the only son of his parents (played by Małgorzata Foremniak [IMDb] [FW.pl]*[CEu] and Marek Kalita [IMDb] [FW.pl]*[CEu]), though families in the city, during Communism, tended to be small, because honestly, it'd be _really difficult_ to find space for kids in a large family.  That he'd be the only child in his family could carry a significance as an "only child" could be doted-on more perhaps than one with brothers / sisters.  Finally we also see that Karol, a teenager after all, did have a certain fascination with the morbid.

Then there's also a random, by all appearances quite kindly, if also perhaps somewhat nerdy, Krakow veterinarian (played by Adam Woronowicz [IMDb] [FW.pl]*[CEu]), married (his wife played by Dorota Landowska [IMDb] [FW.pl]*) if childless, who Karol knows initially only because his family had an aging dog... which he'd have to take periodically to him for his parents. 

The two, Karol and this vet become increasingly important characters in the story, as Krakow, its inhabitants _and_ ITS AUTHORITIES become _increasingly panicked_ by a wave of seemingly random if brutal murders, some taking place JUST AT THE EDGES OF QUITE PUBLIC VENUES / EVENTS (hence murders that could not easily be hushed up, as there would have been quite a few people who'd run across the bodies and then the authorities coming to the crime scenes).

Karol, in his late teens, if nothing else, seemed quite fascinated by the audaciousness of these crimes collecting whatever news clippings he'd find about them in the papers, while to the Vet, 40-something, the story didn't seem to interest him much at all.   He'd just "tend to the animals" brought to his care.  But he'd also not necessarily go home directly after work at night, even if he wouldn't seem like the type who'd like to carouse much after work either.  Still, his absence from home, especially since it didn't seem that he had much anything else to do, would irritate his, again, _childless_ wife.

Much, needless to say, ensues ... all it all it makes for a very interesting, well spun, crime story, with the added ingredients of the time and place.  Good job! ;-)


* Reasonably good (sense) translations of non-English webpages can be found by viewing them through Google's Chrome browser. 

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Full Contact [2015]

MPAA (UR would be R)  Fr. Dennis (3 Stars)

IMDb listing
CineEuropa.org listing

Exclaim.ca (R. Bell) review
The Hollywood Reporter (R. Ford) review
Variety (P. DeBruge) review

Full Contact [2015] [IMDb] [CEu] (written and directed by David Verbeek [IMDb] [CEu] is a very near future arguably SET IN THE PRESENT DAY sci-fi / cyberpunk-ish Dutch / Croatian film which played recently at the 2015 (51st Annual) Chicago International Film Festival.

The film's about a combat drone pilot (played by Grégoire Colin [IMDb] [CEu]) who begins the story flying said combat drones presumably over the Middle East for presumably the U.S. military out of a trailer at a base presumably outside of Las Vegas in Nevada.

All the "presumably-s" above are part of the point.  NOTHING is particular clear, and he doesn't really talk much.  When not blowing-up people thousands of miles away by remote control, he spends his time blowing-off steam hitting-on hookers at strip clubs. But it's clearly "just a past time."  When one of said strippers lets him take her home with him, (home being another another tin trailer), he tells her that he's impotent and they spend the night snuggling.  Not _that_ actually could be attractive to a rather sexed-out stripper/hooker.  So when she actually takes a liking to him, she's quickly disappointed as he continues to visit her in her place of employment.  She'd want "something more," he's just interested in something "just (if barely) unreachable" / "over the horizon."

Well things "at work" suddenly "hit the fan."  Our combat drone pilot, Lt. Ivan Delphine -- a rather odd name for an American ..., 'cept it turns out that he's NOT an American but French.  What's he doing flying combat drones for (presumably) the U.S. military out of a bunker outside of Las Vegas?  Well, he's seems to be some sort of a "military contractor" perhaps "modern day French Foreign Legion" type -- bombs on command what he's told is a "terrorist training camp" BUT it ends up being a school.

That DOES actually shake him up, and he "leaves his job" and goes to (though the film was filmed along the Adriatic coast in Croatia) what would presumably be Lake Mead (a giant reservoir sitting out in the desert outside of Las Vegas  which made out the northern portion of the Grand Canyon by the Hoover/Boulder Dam) where between drunkenness and simply "the heat of the sun" he begins to hallucinate and imagines himself SHOOTING with an assault rifle the Middle Eastern young people he killed in video game fashion with his drone from thousands of miles away.  At this point, we hear a voiceover declare "partial contact."

Recovering from his drunken stupor, Ivan returns back to France, gets a job with "Baggage Security" at an airport there AND ... decides to take-up "kickboxing."   Why kickboxing?  Presumably he no longer wants to fight "from a distance" but "mano a mano" / "up close and personal."

During his time working at the airport, he gets to know / flirt with another "baggage handler" (could be symbolic...) named Cindy (played by Lizzie Brocheré [IMDb] [CEu]).  At one point to "impress" Cindy and obviously against the rules, he forces open one of the suitcases that he and Cindy were handing in their baggage handling area and tries to"profile" the person to whom that suitcase belonged.  She giggles and tells him that he's almost certainly wrong.  Feeling challenged, he tells her "okay, I'll profile you" and proceeds to "profile her" based on her appearance and what (little!) he knew of her.  He _wasn't_ completely off, _but_ not particularly close either.  When he runs into her one day outside of work, and realize how "off" he was about some aspects of her, he apologizes to her.

Finally, after many weeks of training, he finally gets his chance to "kickbox" against "a Middle Eastern type" in MMA ring.  And we hear a voiceover declare "full contact" ...

Sigh ... IMHO a quite fascinating film (but one that will almost certainly never make it past the festival circuit -- and I find that a shame).  Still ... okay, Ivan "grew" ... but is it _really_ a lot of growth when all that Ivan appeared to achieve was learn to fight "mano a mano" rather than blow people up with a drone by remote control ...?  More interesting would be if something did come of his interactions with Cindy ...

Clearly a quite thought provoking film in any case about the increasing "detachment" that we face in contemporary society, a detachment entering into both "love" and "war"  Not a bad festival film!



* Reasonably good (sense) translations of non-English webpages can be found by viewing them through Google's Chrome browser. 

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The Abandoned [2015]

MPAA (R)  Fr. Dennis (3 Stars)

IMDb listing

Best-Horror-Movies.com (M. Klug) review

The Abandoned [2015] (directed by Eytan Rockaway [wikip] [IMDb], screenplay by Ido Fluk [IMDb]) is an excellent small well-constructed indie horror film of the Twilight Zone [1959-1964] [wikip] [IMDb] vein that played recently at the 2015 (51st Annual) Chicago International Film Festival.

We're introduced to Streak (played by Louisa Krause) a woman in her early 20s talking to her mother on the cell-phone as she walks down a rather empty "concrete and steel" urban district on a grey (overcast) late afternoon to a "job interview" for a "security job" in one of said "concrete and steel" grey buildings.  She's not particularly excited about the job, but her mother reminds her that she needs to get this job or child services will come to take her, Streak's little girl, Clara, away.

Now being a security guard does not necessarily require a particularly large skill set, but it's DEFINITELY NOT for everybody, and it becomes rather quickly clear that Streak may not be necessarily the best candidate for that job.  There's clearly a reason why "child services" is threatening to take her kid away, and when at the first sign of creepiness while walking, flashlight in hand, through a big, dark and largely abandoned building, she starts reaching for her "anti-anxiety meds," one gets the message.  But there she is, SHE NEEDS A JOB.

Her presumed future boss is clearly not picky.  He's there long enough to (1) give her "a whistle and a flashlight" (okay, also a uniform and presumably a taser); (2) introduce her to her soon-to-be partner, Cooper (played by Jason Patric), who's been working there long enough to quickly tell her that SHE'S going to be "doing the walk arounds" while HE "holds fort, 'manning' the screens;" and (3) tell her _something_ of the large building that she and "Cooper" would be protecting each evening.  That building was clearly once intended to be opulent, but, alas, thanks to the 2008 Financial Crash, was now "still born" / "on life support" UNFINISHED, BARRICADED / CLOSED, EMPTY and yet, still around because its owners (represented by the "boss" referred to above) were not entirely sure about what to do next.

Oh yes, and those clouds casting a late afternoon pall over the city as Streak was walking to her interview / new job, were coalescing into a storm.  So it LITERALLY becomes a "dark and stormy night ..." ;-)

Okay, we're given a very good, indeed, quite classic "scary story" set up.  And it could go all sorts of ways from there, from Steven King's The Shining [wikip 1] [2] [IMDb], to Quentin Tarantino's From Dusk to Dawn [wikip] [IMDb], to a less "monster-y" more "psychological thriller-like" Twilight Zone [1959-1964] [wikip] [IMDb] direction.  The path chosen by the film makers here was the latter and the film's a reminder that a lot of great special effects are not necessary to make a movie that can make one's skin crawl.  Good job ;-)


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Bridge of Spies [2015]

MPAA (PG-13)  CNS/USCCB (A-III)  ChicagoTribune (3 1/2 Stars)  RogerEbert.com (3 1/2 Stars)  AVClub (A-)  Fr. Dennis (3 1/2 Stars)

IMDb listing
CNS/USCCB (J. Mulderig) review
ChicagoTribune (M. Phillips) review
RogerEbert.com (B. Tallerico) review
AVClub (I. Vishnevetsky) review  


Bridge of Spies [2015] (directed by Steven Spielberg [Wikip] [IMDb], screenplay by Matt Chapman [IMDb] and Ethan and Joel Coen [wikip] [IMDb [1] [2]) may not set out to tell the best known of Cold War stories, but it certainly tells it well as a poignant multi-leveled parable with obvious resonances with today.

The film's also a reminder that spies need not be flashy (Ian Fleming's James Bond), tough (Liam Neeson's Bryan Mills) or even super-smart (Tom Clancy's Jack Ryan).  An excellent spy can simply be "all but invisible."

So it was then with Rudolf Abel (played in the film by Mark Rylance).  Born in 1903 in England of anti-Czarist Russian emigré parents, he returned to Soviet Russia after the Revolution in 1920 bearing an invaluable set of skills -- he knew the customs of Britain / the West and spoke perfect English.  So it was perhaps inevitable that he would be recruited into the Soviet spy services (in their various incarnations).  And shortly after WW II, he was sent with a mundane British / American cover as a quite innocuous small time "photographer / artist" to Brooklyn, NY to _manage_ the Soviet nuclear spy ring in the U.S. that extended from the Soviet diplomatic missions in Washington and New York to LOS ALAMOS (the Rosenbergs, etc).  The small time "photographer / artist" cover allowed him to hold odd hours and even leave New York for fairly extended periods of time without arousing suspicion.  In terms of income, his Brooklyn living quarters were very modest (very simple / "bohemian"...), and he lived in good part on a small stipend that he received from the Soviet government.  This was a guy who honestly _no one would notice_ unless _told_ by someone to _notice him_.

Yet, eventually the FBI was informed to take note of him, and so in the beginning sequence of the film here, we're shown how this utterly innocuous man was apprehended as a "Master Spy" / "ring leader."

Great, we got him.  What now?  This was the 1950s.  The Rosenbergs (American citizens) were given the chair for their betraying the country and _giving the Soviets_ America's Manhattan Project earned nuclear secrets (putting the U.S. into previously unfathomable danger of nuclear annihilation) .

Rudolf Abel however was different.  He _wasn't_ an American citizen.  Yes, he was a spy, but he was a SOVIET spy, who DIDN'T betray his country.  Instead, as a _kind of soldier_ he did what _his country_ had sent him to do ... to spy on us.  As such, he was afforded some pragmatic sympathy by this country, or at least by our nation's "powers that be."

First, he was given a proper trial with a quite reasonably good defense.  The defense lawyer that he was given was James B. Donovan (played magnificently in the film by Tom Hanks).  Not only was Donovan an A-list lawyer, the Soviets would have known him as he served as part of the U.S. Prosecuting team at Nuremburg.

Of course, Abel was found guilty.  After all, he was a spy.  However, pointedly he was _not_ given the chair (as the Rosenbergs had).   Again, the U.S. government _chose_ to make a distinction between him and the Rosenbergs (according to the film at Donovan's own suggestion).  The Rosenbergs were traitors, while Abel was arguably "a soldier" and hence the U.S. government chose to look at him as a kind of "a prisoner or war" / "an insurance policy" to keep in hand in case an American spy would someday be captured by the Soviets.

That proved to be a very smart move as only a few years later U.S. U-2 pilot Gary Powers (played in the film by Austin Stowell) was shot down over the Soviet Union and subsequently captured.

This set up then the rest of the story portrayed in the film, where James B. Donovan was sent by the U.S. government "as a private citizen" to Berlin (even as the world was reeling from the recent construction by the Soviets / East Germans of the Berlin Wall) to negotiate a prisoner swap of Abel for Powers.  Of course no one trusted each other and even the relatively "lowly" East German Government proved to have its own agenda.  But Donovan who had experience in not just trial law, but commercial (insurance) law proved to be able to "get the job done" and indeed more. 

It all proved to be one fascinating story, and one can remind us of the value of having some pragmatism as we seek to confront / manage the various foreign policy challenges of our day.

A VERY GOOD FILM, made by ARGUABLY AMERICA'S HOLLYWOOD "A-TEAM" (Spielberg, the Coen Brothers and Tom Hanks...) and would probably offer a very interesting message for those who would have "eyes to see and ears to hear ..."


* Reasonably good (sense) translations of non-English webpages can be found by viewing them through Google's Chrome browser. 

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