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A Disappointing Continuation

The performances transcend the film's tropes, grounding it in characters that feel more complete than this subgenre often produces.

The plot isn't so bad, but the pace of storytelling is too slow which makes people bored. Certain moments are so obvious and unnecessary for the main plot. I would've fast-forwarded those moments if it was an online streaming. The ending looks like implying a sequel, not sure if this movie will get one

I wouldn't have believed it possible for a boring film to be made out of the Miller/Skoblin/Plevitskaya story - which has sinister Nazi and Soviet spies, impoverished old Russian emigres plotting away in cheap Parisian cafes, a larger than-life popular singer, kidnappings, tortures, murders and betrayals galore - but Rohmer has managed to do exactly that.In fact other than giving him the excuse to write great turgid gobbets of expository dialogue about the Popular Front, Stalin, Trotsky etc (which must have gained him major brownie points amongst those elderly Paris intellectuals who managed to stay awake through the premiere) it is very difficult to know why Rohmer made this film at all - unless its all a pretentiously backhanded tribute to Vladimir Nabokov whose 1943 short story the Assistant Producer covered the same territory and is written from the point of view of a Hollywood film producer.As other reviewers have pointed out even by Rohmer's standards this film is anti-cinematic - with by far the most striking visual images being the newsreel clips inserted at various points and which alone break up the verbose tedium.Worse it completely inverts the true story on which it is supposedly based by making the 'triple agents' wife an innocent.While the details will remain obscure until the relevant files in the Soviet archives become available (assuming they still exist), historians seem unanimous that the General's wife Nadia Plevitskaya - in reality a popular Russian folk singer and not a Greek painter - was every bit as active a Soviet agent as her husband.Certainly she had happily served the Reds during the revolution and was singing for one of their army units when she was captured/'liberated' by her future husband - and if she was not a Soviet spy from the very beginning was presumably a cynical opportunist who stayed loyal to the Whites only until their money and hope of ever leading a counter-revolution evaporated and then returned to her previous allegiance taking her husband with her.Even Nabokov who had met the woman and in 1943 evidently did not believe her to be a Soviet spy, unmercifully mocks her vulgarity and stupidity in his short story.Anyone further from Rohmer's gentle Greek naif would be difficult to imagine.Rohmer's Voronin seems rather closer to the real Skoblin - and particularly to Nabokov's version - but even his character never really becomes that interesting as whatever evil he is doing (and can you conceive of anything more evil than having your close friends and colleagues successively kidnapped and tortured to death by their worst enemies)is always kept offscreen and unreal.All in all a complete waste of two hours and whatever you paid to buy/rent the film.

Eric Rohmer makes a spy film – though as one critic puts it, that doesn't make him likely to be a front runner to direct the next James Bond movie. Set on 1936, under the shadow of the Popular Front victory in France's elections, and based on the real life case of Russian spy Nikolai Skoblin, the movie is mostly about people in closed rooms chatting about politics. But most of the talk seems intelligent and engaging (by the way, the movie follows the real case closely, if you believe the Wikipedia article about Skoblin). The actors are fine, as usual in Rohmer films – Renko is slippery as the titular spy, and Langlet seems lovely as its naive communist neighbor. Now the Popular Front victory of the time probably means next to nothing to most people today – but it was probably a life moving experience for Rohmer – who was 16 at that time. In a way, this film is about Rohmer again settling scores against the French left, though thankfully, his conservative politics aren't as overbearing as in "The Lady and the Duke".

The action takes place in France, year 1936... An anti-Communist Russian exile that was on the White Army has to do such juggling acts to survive in those dangerous times. Those who hate Eric Rohmer's works, his intellectual halo, his never ending dialogs will definitely hate "Triple Agent" as well. Yes, there are so much conversations, so many dissertations... and eventually you may lost the thread of the plot. I mean, this movie is not like "Summer tale", here you got stuff like spying and so, you have to know who's who, and that's pretty hard if the characters don't stop talking about anything. Maybe I'll have to watch it again so I get everything figured out.PS: I'd like to underline the work of wonderful Greek actress Katerina Didaskalu. She's fascinating, and I hadn't have the occasion of watching her in a movie before.My rate: 6.5/10

As is explained in the prologue to the film, it is based on a true story, although some names, situations and facts have been changed or added. The addition of any facts I feel were probably few, as the film wanted to give a sense of the unknown. The use of historical french newsreel footage throughout gives an partial documentary feel to the film, yet the fine direction by Eric Rohmer, editing and quality of acting draws you straight back into the story every time.I came away from seeing this film at the Hong Kong Film Festival 2004 with many thoughts. The film has been very well written as a pre-World War II drama/thriller. With many twists and turns in the plot, most of them between the lead characters, Fiodor a 'white russian' (a russian against Joseph Stalins communist ideals) and his greek wife Arsinoe, who live together in Paris, the russian man being 'in exile'.This is the kind of film that I could watch a hundred times and always come out at the end with different opinion of Fiodor, such is the complexity of the story. The acting benefits well for using actors with applicable nationality/heritage, ie Fiodor, russian, played by Serge Renko and Arsinoe, greek, played by Katerina Didaskalu. Giving the accent the right 'edge', especially in the case of Serge Renko, as the characters speak mainly french in the film. Serge also gives a proud russian 'stiffness' to his character making his behaviour very creditable.The locations selected for the filming were well chosen and the set's well thought out. Some people may find this film a little faltering, but to me it felt as if the screenplay writer wanted to interfere as little as possible with the original true-life source material. Leaving the viewer to make up their own mind.An entertaining film that I would watch again, if only to try and make up my mind about Fiodor. Watch it, think about it and then watch it again is my advice.Rating 8.5-9/10