akashiver | (no subject)

I just finished watching Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy in advance of the upcoming remake, and oh look! It's all available on you tube.

I was expecting the series to be "Tom Clancy-ish" but with more realistic spies. I was unprepared for how clever the series was, particularly in the dialogue department. The acting and the slow-burn tension is brilliant too, but I'd heard about that. What I hadn't heard about was brilliantly awkward scenes like this one, where George Smiley is called into a meeting with his boss and the man who is trying to take his boss's job (0:38-4:59). It's a nice scene for illustrating how conflict can be developed without having characters raise their voices.

For the record, my favourite scene is in this segment, from 2:01 to 5:04. It's a clever and unexpected way of reintroducing a character from the beginning of the story in a completely different context. The audience last saw Prideau as a hard-ass, James-Bondish spy outsmarting Russian agents behind the Iron Curtain. Then he gets betrayed and shot. This scene reintroduces Prideau at a point where the good guys desperately need the information he has, so we're expecting them to try and make contact. But the "reintroduction" scene plays out completely differently than the one I was expecting.

Anyway, the series gets two thumbs up from me. I hope the remake doesn't screw it up.