Engrossing, slow-burn espionage drama is adult viewing

Rating: Null/10 (9 January 2012)

It says a lot about the film that there's a post at the front page right now calling it the emperor's new clothes, doesn't it? Oh, the film may turn out to be complete bunk when you watch it, but you just know it's going to be interesting. Right?
It is. It's one of the most engrossing stories I've been told. It ticks for me all the same boxes The Lives of Others did; Cold War, cold souls, coded eyes looking everywhere. The very best that cinematic deceit can offer.
I cannot tell you what it does or doesn't to the book and TV series, only that I was so stoked that I have the latter here with me to watch. But that is another post.
This, this you have to work to enjoy. It's directly structured to receive you but you have to be the spy, actively so. To better explain how this works, imagine Nolan had done this. There would be an architectural puzzle you'd be called to solve, boxes to arrange, but constant verbiage that would point for you the order of the pieces. It would seem like cerebral work, where in fact it would be like doing a crossword. Why this works by contrast, is the complete abstraction that permeates the story. Here, in dingy murky England, as well as abroad, then as well as now; there are no clear demarcations, and no one to guide us. Our detective is as much a cipher as anyone else, also part of the chess pawns we're called to move.
The broader idea is that the powers in control of this world that many of us experienced from one corner and believed elsewhere to be better, brighter, are equally ruthless, equally cunning, that the game unfolding between them has been so diffused it has drained the world of any color that would make a difference. England looks every bit as we were told was on the other side of the Curtain, pallid shambles.
So in order to get to the bottom of things, you have to abstract from your end. It's not enough to see spies outwit each other, you will have to see like one. You will need to be able to see every detail without being bogged down by any. You will need to leave this as you found it, having touched every corner. Move swiftly back and forth between the pieces, and move passionless, detached, knowing it's going to be always a little bigger and more intricate than you can immediately fathom.
Gary Oldman is simply superb in this, a role he cultivated as Gordon in the Batman films. It's a joy to be able to watch a great actor erase his presence.
For Smiley the point is to solve the case. Ours is getting to see how he tinkers and tailors the narrative. The resolution is an anti-climax, and we get to know all there is to know here. It was an aesthetic choice we learn, as much as a moral one.
Again neither of this is what is at stake in our film. Aesthetically, it is a simply drab, controlled affair. It was perhaps a wise choice that a Swede was brought in to direct, from a country that never having had any stakes in the game. But it's the only false note here, because he merely colors the thing. Morally, the whole thing is meant to be moot. Who knows what ruthlessness Smiley and Control perpetrated from their end.
No, the point is that you get to watch a world unfold beyond control. You can only spy. The whole shifting world is a distant reflection on your glasses. I get shivers just thinking what Antonioni could have done with this, it should have been his project after The Passenger.