Bridge of Spies (2015)

USA/Germany/India
directed by: Steven Spielberg
written by: Ethan Coen, Joel Coen, Matt Charman
starring: Tom Hanks, Mark Rylance, Sebastian Koch
seen on 7th July, 2018

I watched this film about a month ago and I kept saying to myself: "I've got to give it some time to make up my mind" and I kept saying it for so long I nearly forgot I even watched it, and well, that about sums up my opinion.

To be a bit more specific, I was actually deliberating whether the praiseworthy "oh the humanity" theme can balance out the disgusting pro-american/patriotic tone of the whole thing that maybe could find its place in the black-and-white 1990s but surely not in the cinema of the 21st century. By using these outdated optics Spielberg and his team, that surprisingly (for me) includes the Coen brothers, prove that they are not able to step outside their own shadow and reflect not only the times in which their story is set but also (and more importantly) the times in which they are making their statement. I will illustrate my displeasure on an example: The part I theoretically liked the most in this film was a connection between two shots framing (or rather summing up) the story: the first one is where Hanks rides the train "from one Berlin to the other one" and sees people getting shot down while trying to climb "the wall". The other one is of course the one where he rides a city train back in his home country and watches kids cheerfully climbing fences during play time. But how can they present this with a clear conscience as a symbol of "oppression x freedom" in present-day America, knowing full well what present-day America does to children and with walls and fences - at home, towards USA's neighbours and in a lot of other countries around the world.

I could also possibly enjoy the character of Abel as presented by Mark Rylance, but what good is such a brilliant minimalist performance in a film where manipulation follows sentimentality. I also found it amusing how is the introductory scene for mr. lawyer written to make him look like the biggest douchebag imaginable (For some reason I kept imagining Quentin Tarantino in the role: "Not our guy, a client of our guy." I believe that could be the mark of a Coen.) but since he's being played by Tom Hanks he later on displays no signs of these character traits presented during this exposition and forever keeps on acting and talking like the best gosh darnest man in the world and its history. And that's about all I remember about this film.