I like the storyline of this show,it attract me so much
View MoreWaste of time
I really wanted to like this movie. I feel terribly cynical trashing it, and that's why I'm giving it a middling 5. Actually, I'm giving it a 5 because there were some superb performances.
View MoreA lot of perfectly good film show their cards early, establish a unique premise and let the audience explore a topic at a leisurely pace, without much in terms of surprise. this film is not one of those films.
View MoreTo appreciate "Farewell" it probably helps if you are old enough to remember the time period in which it was set. Intrigues concerning the Soviets probably won't seem all that important to young audiences.The film begins about 1981 (though the time frame is rather vague in the story at times) in the Soviet Union. Sergei Gregoriev is a disaffected KGB official--one who has decided that the best way for his country to progress is for his government to fall. To speed this process, he's decided to leak information to the West. However, instead of going through expected channels, he picks a low-level Frenchman working in his country (Pierre Froment). Froment has no interest in this sort of intrigue and is, reluctantly, pulled into the affair. The name 'Farewell' is the code name Froment's bosses have given the case. What exactly happens next, you'll need to see for yourself, though suffice to say the true story (with some historical license in spots) helped lead to the crumbling of the USSR.While there isn't a lot of information about Gregoriev and the Farewell Affair on the internet, what is there sometimes contradicts the film. His actual name was not Gregoriev but Vladimir Vetrov. A big twist near the end is the US government betraying Gregoriev and casting him to the KGB--which did NOT happen in real life. My wife did a bit of research and found Gregoriev was very self-destructive and came to the attention of the KGB after this alcoholic stabbed a couple people and then implicated himself! Not at all what you'll see in the film--and reason to knock at least a point off the overall score. Still, the film is very tense, very well acted and fascinating throughout. I just wonder why they had to make that jab at the US. Sometimes we, like other countries, deserve it but here it just seemed a bit,...well,...odd.
View MoreIt says something about film marketing that the makers of this nice little film felt it necessary to give featured billing to Willem Dafoe and Diane Kruger, who might be recognizable to American film goers but are certainly not the film's stars. Kruger appears on screen briefly, while Dafoe has a minor and totally unnecessary role. The real stars are Emir Kusturica as Gregoriev, a high ranking Russian intelligence agent who is determined to expose his country's spy network in an effort to bring down the Brezhnev regime, and Guilliaume Canet as a young French businessman serving as Gregoriev's unwilling courier. Credit must also go to Alexandra Maria Lara, the French businessman's beautiful young wife who fears for her family's safety and cannot get a truthful word out of her husband. Kusturica is excellent, Canet is competent and Lara is very good. This is "based on a true story," a phrase that always leaves me wondering where fact expires and invention begins. But it is very well done. The Russian is caught and the young French couple escape by driving from Moscow to the Finnish border in a snow storm. Of some interest are the actors playing Ronald Reagan, Francois Mitterrand and Gorbachev, each of whom figures prominently in the story. They're a pretty stiff bunch.
View MoreFrom the brilliant cinematography of the opening scene, this movie declares itself as a masterpiece. I watched it at the edge my seat till the end, laughing and crying for Emir Kusturica's Sergei, a bear of a man and hating my beloved Willem Defoe's blood curdling CIA chief Finn. Guillaume Canet as Pierre Froment is also very good, maddeningly naive and equally lovable; in fact movie is full of living and breathing real characters, although unfortunately all women are slightly shadowy compared to men. I loved the exquisite detail to the period with clothes, hair, glasses and atmosphere, particularly in Moscow. The story was grippingly interesting and every single scene, every bit of dialogue believable. I feel enriched for having watched L'affaire Farewell, Merci Christian Carion.
View MoreFarewell is a French film in French, English and Russian, but with English subtitles. The film is based on the book Bonjour Farewell by Serguei Kostine. The film takes place in the early 1980's and is about a Russian internal security officer named Sergei, who is fed up with the current communist government and decides to take Soviet documents and secret information to the government of France, under President Mitterrand, who himself is a socialist, but is working in coalition with the communists. Sergei hopes that by doing this he could bring about a change in the Soviet Union. Sergei realizes that he can not do it alone, so he gets the help of a French engineer named Pierre Froment, who is based out of Moscow, to help him with his mission. During the film both men will come under suspicion of family members and those around them and at times they even doubt each other, but Sergei is bound and determined to succeed with his mission. Before, I saw Farewell, I knew very little about it, but had seen and read some of the great reviews it had been receiving. It took me a little while to sort of get caught up with the characters and all the events that were going on during the film, but in the end I found myself loving the film. I am glad that I decided to go see Farewell, instead of skipping it altogether. I think the fact that it was about espionage worried me, because I really am not a fan of the usual James Bond type espionage and spy films. Farewell thankfully turned out to be something different. Instead of a lot of action, car chases and the usual high tech gimmicks and story lines that are pumped out in the American versions of these type of films (and I guess the British, seeing as they created James Bond), we are instead taken down a different route, where we are introduced to these two men and we really get to know the two of them well during the length of the film and we even start to care about them. We see them go about their daily lives with things going on at home and raising families, but these two also are passionate people and they are doing what they are doing for what they consider to be the best thing for them and their country and families. This film took a more personal approach by letting us get to know these two men and giving us good character development and sets a good pace for the film and also helps us to understand why they are doing what they are doing and the end results and choices they end up making. The dialogue between the characters is all very good here and the acting from the two leads and basically the whole cast is terrific. The film once you get to know what is going on, moves at a good pace and at times is thrilling and at other times we are in deep fascination to see what will happen in the character's personal lives as well as what will happen with the mission they are working on. As, I said we really do get to know these characters well with their heroic qualities and even their flaws and we still admire them both and get to care for them. Some of the best scenes of the film have nothing to do with the espionage mission at all, but instead seeing how they interact with their families and how they go about their daily lives. It may not be action packed, but it feels realistic and human and more believable this way. Farewell is a really captivating film with it's story which is brought to great justice by a great script, direction and performances. I also appreciated seeing a European view on the events and matters that take place during the film instead of a typical and perhaps biased American version. I could respect and see what they were trying to get across in this version of the story and I am glad they did not change anything to be more commercial, or to sell more tickets. Farewell is a terrific film and definitely one of the best of 2010.
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