France,
2004, 100 min
Shown in 2004
CREDITS
- dir
-
Eric Rohmer
- prod
-
Jean-Michel Rey, Philippe Liégeois
- scr
-
Eric Rohmer
- cam
-
Diane Baratier
- editor
-
Mary Stephen
- cast
-
Serge Renko, Katerina Didaskalou, Amanda Langlet, Emmanuel Salinger, Cyrielle Clair
- source
-
WORLD SALES Wild Bunch, 99 rue de la Verrerie, 75004 Paris, France. FAX: 33-1-53-01-50-49. EMAIL: lkalmar@exception-wb.com.
- premiere
-
U.S. Premiere
OTHER
Eric Rohmer’s homage to Alfred Hitchcock is an espionage thriller set in 1930s France. A Russian general and his beautiful Greek wife live in exile in a Paris rife with political intrigue; the Popular Front is on the rise, as is tension with Nazi Germany and infighting between rival Russian exile communities. While the general disappears on secretive “errands,” the wife befriends their new neighbors, a couple almost over-enthusiastic in their support of the Popular Front. As her husband grows more mysterious, everyone begins to realize that he’s a spy; everyone, that is, except his wife, whose questions are always quickly, and too smoothly, answered. Rohmer ratchets up the tension with Hitchcockian glee even during the most mundane activities; random encounters appear vaguely threatening, while ordinary conversations turn strangely enigmatic. While bowing to the usual spy-movie conventions of clandestine meetings and political intrigues, Triple Agent still possesses Rohmer’s hallmark: people lounging about apartments having refined discussions about life, love and liberties. They may be agents, double agents or triple agents, for the Nazis, the White Russians, the Soviets or others, but Rohmer cleverly makes sure they’re also recognizably human, as capable of agonizing over romantic decisions and private indiscretions as they are of double-crossing the Gestapo.
FACTOID #81
Anjelica Huston was the first recipient of the Piper-Heidsieck Award in 1991. When Huston received the prize from the champagne maker, she joked, “Can I drink it?”
