Which non-indian film u saw recently has made u post here???

[kid-glove]

TTSS -

Late to the party, but still

For Le Carre fans & fans of mini-series, it's a wholly satisfying experience! But even as a standalone piece, it should have worked for most.

Oldman as the decidedly passive but extremely calculative Smiley hasn't disappointed. The walking style, thin upper-lip & thoughtful roll of eyes does remind one of the great Alec G. But both actors differ in many ways. It's with his voice that Oldman dictates his unreadable chess player of a character. Tomas adds a couple of scene of the lone Smiley uneasily swimming up & down the river, the sagging skin of old-age, matched by the simmering calmness of the river (70's England). It's perhaps the visual exposition of Smiley being essentially Anti-Bond. There are no carefully packed abs & beautifully stacked bikinis, no Hawaii/Barbados to look at. What we get though is trapped masculinity, of hot-war nostalgia, lost virility & closeted sexuality. As the lady says to Oldman, those times had past, with the war.

Now it's all left to a matter of preferences & orientation. It's of manners, in utmost rudimentary way. Disappointed that the film didn't have that extended ritual of the men in the room. The extravagant dressing sense of tinker, the boorishness of soldier, the less apparent snitchy nature of the tailor, etc. When Firth slams the door shut with his foot in Westerby sequence, I'd have thought they'd have used the other room sequences to contrast the change in behavior.

Love it when Tomas has fun, it's not like it should be stripped of meaning. When the fly bothers Guillam, Smiley observes, rolls the window, flushing it out without a fuss.

Speaking of Guillam (Like other men in the film, is slightly more vulnerable on the outside, unlike Carre's version of this character, played here by excellent Cumberbatch. Who leaves out the assured qualities of his Sherlock - Season 2, Episode 1 is out already btw!), one is in to the in-joke, Tinker Tailor Soldier Poorman Beggarman Gaymen.

The spectacle boy (Prideaux's scout watcher!) in the mini-series looks like mini-Tomas Alfredson! Lol! This one is understandably less pronounced than in the series, unlike that expansive medium it's these sort of characters & extended moments that a feature film should dispense with.

And it's especially rewarding when a filmmaker sets a pace & tone from the first shot. The cafe scene (we see this in objective pov later, but again, it's so seamlessly fit) here doesn't seem flashy. In the change of setting (not just Czech -> Hungary, but also the military base), for a film that's set in the coldest of atmospheres & emptiness of non-war, it's this fat waiter who isn't particularly skilled & near-embarrassment that typifies the Spy-world. Not having men in military uniforms is a potent choice.

Smiley wages a war, to be sure. Like with all wars in the film, it's a personal one. His nemesis Karla isn't shown or heard (a wise choice. As much as I liked Patrick Stewart's muted cameo in the series). But the meeting is viscerally described by Smiley. In Oldman's behavior, it so seems like he regrets the words said to the tortured man. That the lighter with his 'Ann' engraved on, isn't only going to be kept a memento, but a tool to carefully toy around Smiley's emotions (which the uninitiated fans might gather in the end). The lost sense of perception in emotive state is a master move, but that'd also be the downfall of Karla's mole.