The Assignment

1997, 1080hd

Celine Bonnier film clip (collages below)

Liliana Komorowska film clip (collages below)

Lucie Laurier film clip (collages below)

Claudia Ferri film clip (collages below)

Scoop's comments:

There are many things I like about this flick, but I think my favorite element is that they genuinely tried to figure out what might happen if an espionage-impaired naval officer, who just happened to be a Carlos the Jackal look-alike, had to make a sudden metamorphosis to a capable international spy impersonating the notorious Carlos. The moviemakers imagined the problems the impersonator would have to face:

• If he wanted to fool any of the Carlos girlfriends, he'd have to train him how to fuck like Carlos, so his bosses would have to hire an ex-girlfriend to help, and the impersonator would have to do it even if he was some kind of devout Christian. Remember, he didn't choose a life of espionage, but was forced into service because he happens to look exactly like a terrorist. The CIA bureau chief tells him, "Don't think of it as cheating on your wife. Think of it as fuckin' for your flag."
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• If the CIA wanted to keep the impersonator under deep, deep cover, there is always the possibility that our own men and our allies will believe that he really is Carlos, and will kill try to kill him. If successful in his impersonation, his greatest enemy would be our guys, because we are the ones that hate Carlos.
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• There is the equally real possibility that the impersonator would have to kill some of our guys. If he's in deep cover, our guys don't generally know about it. If US or European or Israeli agents think the impersonator is Carlos, he'll probably have to kill them in self defense.
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• How does he explain to his family that he's gone for six months at a time, and when he returns he seems like a different man, more like the monster he's been trained to duplicate?
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• After he's "made" by a terrorist, how can he assure that the entire terrorist community doesn't come after him and his family?

Espionage stories always duck these issues, but in the real world, these are real and painful issues that deep cover agents have to face, and this film gives no easy outs. It faces them all squarely, often unpleasantly.

The filmmakers also deal with the need to make the impersonator deeply aware of Carlos' proclivities. Deeply aware. Aware in a way far more personal and real and visceral than what can be found in a textbook. This requires some brainwashing techniques, and the movie cleverly shows how that might be done.

One thing the writers avoided was the language problem. Carlos spoke languages that the officer didn't speak. What the hell was he going to do if he had to hold down a conversation in French or some other language spoken fluently by Carlos. Even if the fake Carlos could learn passable French in six months, he couldn't learn to speak exactly like Carlos. How did it happen that the "marked" girlfriend spoke to the impersonator in English? Was that just luck? The CIA couldn't know what language Carlos and his girlfriend spoke together in their intimate moments, because they admittedly couldn't even take a photo of the guy from closer than 500 yards!

But, let's assume that there are plausible answers to the language questions, and just enjoy the show. It's a good ride. This is probably one of the very few films about international espionage that really catches both the intensity of the operation as well as the painful drudgery of the training.

The film also has an unexpected undercurrent of unobtrusive but richly realized visual poetry. An example - there is a symmetry between the opening and closing scenes, and those two scenes use the same visual metaphor (involving a spider's web and a cigarette) to show the similarities and differences between the two look-alikes.