Review of The Quiller Memorandum

My first reaction after finishing Quiller was that it moved too slowly, but upon reflection, I can overlook that: it was like a one-act play.

The heart of the movie is in the relationships Quiller has with others, especially Inge (Senta Berger), his love interest, and Pol (Alec Guinness), his superior in Berlin. Pol is gentlemanly enough, but to him Quiller is ultimately a tool or playing piece (implied by, for instance, the scene where Pol uses two muffins to spell out Quiller's role as an expendable information-gatherer, then eats the crumb of muffin which represented Quiller.) Pol isn't just detached from his operatives; the whole craft of spying is a game to him. Throughout the movie, he treats all developments with a bemused air, and the script reinforces his arm's-length view of events: even the climactic capture of the neo-Nazis is only shown to us as one end of a telephone conversation, and Pol seems to care about his victory about as much as he cares about going upstairs for breakfast. He's not sloppy -- we see him insist on procedures like the elaborate cigarette ritual for identifying an agent -- but he's a spymaster more than he is the guy in the field. He gets to be the big-picture guy, and he knows it. The two guys who previously had Quiller's job died, and Quiller is in danger throughout the movie; to my recollection, Pol never is. Small wonder that Quiller is disillusioned with him by the end of the movie.

Quiller's relationship with Inge is even more important. Her deception undermines what little joy Quiller might otherwise have found in his victory. If she can't be trusted, who can be? Is anything that she said to him real? Were her emotions all fake? Who else might be a conspirator? The use of background characters as Nazis later in the movie sets up the message that Inge's deception drives home: nobody can be trusted for sure and there's nothing you can do about it. No matter how much you want to believe otherwise.

(I want to say something about the cinematography and the effectiveness of the close-ups on Inge and Quiller at various points -- but I don't know how to put it into words.)

On another note, my favorite part, hands down, was the scene where Oktober (Max von Sydow) first interrogates Quiller. That maneuver where Oktober gets behind the captive Quiller and massages his temples has caught fast in my memory (almost as strongly as a gesture from another movie: the sweep of the hand which Charlene (Ashley Judd) uses to warn Chris (Val Kilmer) away from a police ambush in Heat.) I liked the temple massage because it deviates from how one would expect the captive to be treated during interrogation; as a DM, it's useful to me as something an interrogator can do which is unexpected and off-putting, but not violent. I bet it would get a strong emotional reaction from the party, especially if one of their allies did it to a prisoner they had taken.

An open question: was the older teacher in league with Inge and the Nazis? There's that moment at the end where she does the briefest of double takes upon seeing Quiller at the school, and she is the one who introduced Quiller to Inge...