Espion, lève-toi

I saw this film years ago when I was much younger and it was just another movie but 35 odd years later you understand what the story is about and its all very clever indeed

... I would have wanted to know exactly what was the spying object of all those characters?...Total mystery, no one mentions anything about that. About the music, Morricone is the greatest no doubt about it but, the music for this one, which I like it very much, and I knew it before watching the film from an old audio-cassette, is more suitable for a war movie, I see already the German tanks advancing in formation on that... Lino Ventura, which I like very much, unfortunately, is the same Lino Ventura, he's playing himself. I like more chameleons, totally versatile actors (example Gary Oldman), which in every role they are different, you don't even recognize them. Michel Piccoli, Bruno Cremer, Heinz Bennent and Bernard Fresson are all better than Ventura in smaller roles. Very impressive Marc Mazza, the bad guy (also a very good bad guy in the masterpiece directed by René Clément Rider on the Rain/Le passager de la pluie made in 1970).

I caught this film on a hotel room TV set, just when I was going to bed. A look at Lino Ventura made me stay just for a few minutes - and finally I set on to the dramatic, dark end. Looking at my watch I noticed that I must have started watching the film just after the early credits.

This capacity of keeping even a tired spectator awake is a trade mark of director Yves Boisset, with an easy to follow storyline told so that it is new, or old seen through interesting new angles. The ambiance is luxurious Switzerland and French intelligence headquarters, or college's libraries - for spying is done not only by your common 007-type of agent, but by people "above all suspicion".

Ventura plays a retired agent living a peaceful life with a younger, loving German woman, who's teaching in France, when he is called into active service again - very much against his will. When he finally starts suspecting all people around him - minus those who fall dead after he makes the first moves into knowledge... - it will be too late. Too late to avoid discovering the unthinkable truth, and too late to get back to his peaceful retirement.

The dark end may not please all viewers, but it is actually a signal of the times the movie was made - and now that you are a quarter of a century past that, you may notice that it was a forewarning against the all encompassing spying and intruding on people's lives from those people up there who are "above all suspicion"!

Yves Boisset has always been a politically committed director,but his stories are always linear and accessible:hence their efficiency,even if people complain about their manicheism or naiveté.One cannot deny their impact on the audience when it comes to depicting the Algerian war (in RAS) or racism (in Dupont Lajoie,probably his best effort).

"Espion lève -toi" moves in another direction ;relatively speaking it shows the influence of Pakula and "the parallax view".A hero (Ventura)fighting against something he does not really understand,estranged from his compatriots in Zurich ,Switzerland,the symbol of the power of money.Around him everybody's dying,even his lover ,a German professor is threatened ,and maybe she's not the woman he thinks she is (hints at Baader's gang and terrorism).When Ventura strikes back,not only it's too late but it may also be absurd and pointless:he 's nothing but a puppet on a string like laurence Harvey in "Mandchourian candidate" .

This movie is unique in Boisset's career:it was initially to be directed by Zulawski,and the snub critics used to say what a better movie it would have been !It's not sure :Zulawski's works are often pretentious and -in France,abroad they do not seem to bother- overrated ("posession" or "l'important c'est d'aimer")and Boisset's simplicity and academic but efficient style fit the screenplay like a glove.Unlike Frankenheimer's and Pakula 's works I Mention above,"Espion lève- toi" is no masterpiece but it should appeal to people who like this genre.

Yves Boisset got lost after this effort:he tackled pure thriller with "le prix du danger" "canicule "or "bleu comme l'enfer",and deprived of his political or social comments he was nothing but another director

I am still amazed by the resemblance between this movie and another one starring Lino Ventura, and also a French movie full of mystery and disturbing plot, another movie where the technicians and actors did not know the whereabouts of the plot: UN PAPILLON SUR L'EPAULE. Of course the story is not the same, here Ventura plays a secret agent working for the French SDECE, the former DGSE - French CIA, MI6 or Mossad, in charge of the protection of outside French interests in the world. It is hard to follow, disturbing I repeat, and the ending is more or less the same - I would say the very same for the Lino Ventura's character. Another element in common with UN PAPILLON SUR L'EPAULE. You can also think about LA SEPTIEME CIBLE or LE SILENCIEUX, also with Ventura, as a tracked down man. Typical Yves Boisset's topic, government maneuvering, fiddling, where the human life is easily worthless. Boisset's favourite message. Reason of state among everything and every one. I personally met Marc Mazza once and shaked his hand; he was my father's boss' son. Father Mazza was a big executive in an Italian tyre factory, and my father a truck driver delivering tyres in retailor's warehouses.