I’m feeling pretty positive today, which is a good thing as though my next film, 1975’s Three Days of the Condor is gripping and cool, it’s also another downer, one of those bleak, post-Watergate ‘the government is evil’ thrillers that were big in the mid-70s. It all goes down at Christmas but for poor Robert Redford’s unwitting CIA analyst Turner, things are decidedly un-jolly. He has to go on the run when, after sneaking out the office backdoor for lunch, he returns to find all of his co-workers have been gunned down by Max Von Sydow’s group of assassins.
I initially find it a bit hard to swallow that office drone Turner keeps get the best of trained assassins and the CIA using techniques he’s picked up just from reading a lot. Then again, this time our hero isn’t geeky Elliott Gould, it’s super smooth ‘Sundance Kid’ Redford, so it’s all cool.
The plot isn’t overly festive but the frosty Big Apple feelsl like the perfect setting for this gritty tale of a man on the run. Not knowing who he can trust, Turner randomly selects feisty photographer Kathy (Faye Dunaway) to essentially kidnap and hide out in her apartment. Of course, this is Redford, so naturally she’ll fall for him and they’ll end up doing the no-pants dance anyway. This development feels like a slightly seedy, unnecessary misstep in an otherwise slick film but the love scene is gorgeously shot, I guess.
This is a tale of isolation, paranoia and loneliness at probably the worst time of year to be on your own. Christmas is subtly but effectively omnipresent in almost every scene, the season making itself known through haunting carols heard in the background. ‘God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen’; ‘Good King Wenceslas’; ‘Joy to the World’ - each very deliberately, plaintively heard during grim scenes of uncertainty and tragedy. This really helps underscore the horror of the film’s most devastating moments. Tidings of comfort and joy, indeed.
There are exciting moments, some quick, shocking explosions of violence but the overarching tone of Sydney Pollack’s film is a sombre one as we hurtle towards a depressingly uncertain climax that refuses to confirm that the ‘good guys’ definitely won this one. It’s a powerful tonic to the usual ‘feel good’ holiday fare, hammering home that the festive season really is the loneliest time of year if there’s nobody left alive who’ll miss you.
Comments