The Cold War can seem a lifetime ago, but L'Affaire Farewell brings a critical episode from that time humming back to life. Director Christian Carion follows his Academy Award-nominated hit Joyeux Noël with another tale that chronicles sweeping conflicts between nations in humanizing detail.
It's Moscow, 1981. KGB spy Sergei Grigoriev (played in a brooding, layered performance by filmmaker Emir Kusturica) has decided to leak documents to the West that would compromise his own country. He has his motives. Pierre Froment (Guillaume Canet from Ne le dis à personne) is a French engineer working in Moscow. He has no connection to espionage, until his boss draws him into a delicate game. Grigoriev will pass the documents to Froment, who will relay them to French intelligence. Divulging proof of how deeply the KGB has infiltrated the West, the Russian hopes to precipitate an American reaction, and with it the collapse of the Soviet Union.
Carion handles the high-stakes narrative with deft skill, shifting from chambers of power where François Mitterand and Ronald Reagan confer with advisers, to the ground-level manoeuvres that put everything at risk for Froment and Grigoriev. Although there are scenes of tense drama, this is not a car-chase spy thriller. Instead, L'Affaire Farewell probes the impact of the spy-versus-spy atmosphere on these two men and their families.
Canet is quietly effective as a man drawn in over his head who may have resources he never imagined. Kusturica is a revelation, giving a performance that uses his physical dominance both to menace and disarm. They're aided by a superb supporting cast that includes Willem Dafoe as the head of the CIA, Alexandra Maria Lara as Froment's wife and Fred Ward in the role of President Ronald Reagan.
Cameron Bailey
Christian Carion was born in Cambrai, France. He has written and directed several short films, including
Le Château d'eau (98) and
Monsieur le député (99), and the features
Une Hirondelle a fait le printemps (01),
The Girl from Paris (03),
Joyeux Noël (05), which was nominated for an Academy Award® for best foreign-language film, and
L'Affaire Farewell (09).