Friday 27 April 2007

Film Review, The Russia House


Film Review by Anna Peña Vicent

Film Title: The Russia House

Country / year: USA, 1990

Genre: Drama/ thriller

Director: Fred Schepisi.

Cast: Sean Connery, Michelle Pfeiffer, Roy Sheider, James Fox, Klaus Maria Brandauer.

Type of language used: British and American English.

Plot:

Bartholomew “Barley” Scott Blair is a british publisher who regularly attends book sales fairs in Moscow. One day, a soviet writer sends him a manuscript containing information about the soviet nuclear capabilities and their atomic weapons and asking him to publish it.
The book is intercepted by the British intelligence and with the American co-operation forces Barley to contact the mysterious writer and verify if the documents are true or is just a trick to confuse the enemies.
Blair, who has been always very fond of the Russian people values, doesn’t want to take part of this “game” but he is compelled to do it and there is no chance for him.
But everything changes when he meets the russian writer’s contact, a beautiful soviet woman called Katia. Blair is immediately attracted to Katia and then he has to choose between finishing his fact-finding mission or betraying his country to save Katia and her family.

Analysis:

Adaptation of John Le Carre’s novel on the world of the international espionage and its hypocrisy, the pacifist values of the human being as well as his ambiguity and contradiction. But over all, is a love story which is capable of piercing all the ideologies and that is totally unpredictable.
The soundtrack is brilliant and essential in order to submerge the spectator into the story. This, joined with the excellent photography in a range of grey and blue scenes provides the film with a necessary touch of melancholy and romanticism.
All the actors play a good role, specially Sean Connery who gives one of the best performances of his career.

Opinion:

In my opinion is a really good and entertaining film to see it and takes part of my private film library. Maybe some people can find it a bit characterless and mushy because the love story reduces leadership to spying.
I think it could be a good film for men and women as equal. At least give the chance to watch it and I hope you won’t regret it.

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