No Heroes

Rating: 8/10 (21 March 2013)

The plot of Argo is so crazy and unbelievable that it must be true. In order to get six US diplomats hiding in the Canadian ambassador's residence out of Teheran, the CIA set up a fake film company, publicize the production of a fake film and send an agent into Iran who tries to smuggle the six out under the pretense of being a location scout team. Ben Affleck directed the film and he plays Tony Mendez, the real CIA man behind this ultimately successful operation. Argo is not a tale of heroism, it is a tale of professionals doing their job. His Tony is a serious, realistic man who knows the risks but is also aware that this is their best chance, as crazy as the idea sounds. Argo allows the viewer deep insights into the bureaucracy, the envy and power games, the lack of reality, a power apparatus like the CIA brings with it. Yet, it never condemns or exaggerates. This is, after all, a bureaucratic organization and within that framework, these people are trying to do what is best. The scenes within the CIA are one highlight of the film, those inside the ambassador's residence in which Mendez and the six refugees struggle with themselves and each other about whether they can and should take the risk, are the other.
Argo is a film about people under pressure, humans in a state of emergency trying to figure out and do what is right. These scenes as well as the one in which the fake location scouts visit a Teheran bazar are of an almost unbearable intensity, driven by a painfully close, increasingly unsettling camera which captures and mirrors the threat of people unravelling, fearing for their lives. In these moments, Affleck gives the film an almost documentary feel, plunging the viewer right into the scene as it happens. But Argo is also a very cleverly constructed thriller in which the suspense rises almost imperceptibly until the audience are suddenly right on the edges of their seats, hardly knowing how they got there. Affleck does a great job letting the story breathe, never artificially heightening the tension, allowing it to organically grow from the existential threat under which these people live. Adding a wonderful subtle little Hollywood satire, perfectly enacted by the fake filmmakers Alan Arkin and John Goodman, Argo is a memorably film about normal people surviving under pressure, in which good and bad are still a little too easy to differentiate.
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