The Post (2017)

It took awhile to get going and work out who’s who and who each of the characters works for, but of course it could be me! But once you get past this rather frustrating obstruction Steven Spielberg's movie turns out to be an entertaining political journey. Its story covers the trials and tribulations of how The Washington Post, and various members of its board and staff, got to publish classified documents with regard to the Vietnam War.

Bridge of Spies.

The bridge of the title in the latest film directed by Steven Spielberg is The Glienicke Bridge that connects Berlin to Potsdam and was one of many border crossings between the West and the East during the cold war that followed World War 2 and the annexing of Germany.  The eastern part of the bridge is in the West and the western part is in the East, the border between the Socialist German Democratic Republic (GDR) and the Capitalist Federal Republic of Germany (DDR)runs through the middle of it. In 1961 following the GDR’s attempt to secure their border the bridge could only be used as a border crossing point for Allied military personnel or if special permission was granted.

 

Colonel Rudolf Ivanovich Abel.

Glienicke Bridge gained fame because it was where ‘agent’ exchanges took place between the USA and the Soviet Union. The most famous of these exchanges was on the 10^th February 1962 between the US U-2 spy plane pilot Francis Gary Powers, the all American boy who could not follow orders, who was shot down on the 1^st May 1960 and the Soviet Intelligence Officer Colonel Rudolf Ivanovich Abel who was put on trial and accused of spying on the USA from an apartment in New York for a nine year period. Abel whose real name was Vilyam Genrikhovich Fisher was born in the United Kingdom in Newcastle upon Tyne he was the son of Russian émigré’s and whose father Heinrich was a Bolshevik freedom fighter.  

 

James B Donovan.

Although it’s this true story that forms the backbone of Bridge of Spies (2015) Spielberg’s movie mainly concentrates on the American insurance lawyer James B Donovan who in 1945 had assisted at the Nuremberg war trials and was tasked with defending Colonel Abel in 1957 and to broker the subsequent prisoner exchange in 1962. The American actor Tom Hanks ably covers this part, but it’s the British actor Mark Rylance who takes all the plaudits for his role as the very likable Colonel Abel.   

 

Glienicke Bridge 10th February 1962

The same bridge on my last visit in August 2012.

This is a rather enjoyable old-fashioned cold war thriller that brings to mind movies like The Spy Who Came in from the Cold (1965) and is made even better by the script which was co written by Matt Charman and the Coen Brothers. The historical accuracy is obviously stretched – well it is a Hollywood movie – and we get a typical soft US ending just like we did with Spielberg’s Lincoln (2012) but I would still recommend you to see this movie if for no other reason than to spend an enjoyable couple of hours in your local cinema.  

Saving Mr Banks.

Apparently filmmaker and studio owner Walt Disney spent 20 years trying to get the film rights to enable him to make a story that his own children particularly liked about a ‘mystical and magical English nanny’ and a chimney sweep with the worse cockney accent your ever be unfortunate enough to hear! The story Mary Poppins was authored in 1934 by the Australian born novelist Helen Lyndon Goff who wrote under the pen name of P L Travers.

Helen Lyndon Goff.

If John Lee Hancock’s film Saving Mr Banks (2013) is anything to go by I would not mind betting that Walt wished he’d he never bothered. Mrs Travers, as she insisted on being called, was a bad tempered, rude, self obsessed spinster who brought to mind the lyric about ‘cobwebs’ from the Marianne Faithfull track ‘Why’d Yd Do It’ from Broken English.  We first meet this woman as an obnoxious misguided child who lived in a remote part of the Australian outback with her suicide prone mother, her drunken father, who hinged on the edge of insanity and a younger sister.  The film jumps back and forth between her rather unfortunate childhood and her visit to the Disney capitalist filmmaking utopia in New York.!

Mary Poppins, Walt Disney and Mrs Travers!

The extremely glossy production, were both the Mary Poppins story and the author’s repugnant outlook on life are explained away by her upbringing, stars Tom Hanks as Walt Disney and Emma Thompson as P L Travers. Not exactly riveting, but it turned out to be an acceptable experience but one that was tadge over long and it will certainly not linger in your subconscious. Evidently it won an award for the ‘Best Movie for Grownups Who Refuse to Grow Up’ that say’s it all really!

Captain Phillips.

Films based on books always seem popular at our local cinema and the story of the hijacking of the cargo ship the MV Maersk Alabama in April 2009 was no exception. Based on a book written by the captain of the cargo vessel Richard Philips, A Captains Duty: Somali Pirates, Navy Seals and Dangerous Days at Sea, and adapted for the screen by William ‘Billy’ Ray, best known for writing the screenplay for the Hunger Games (2012), it tells how four poverty stricken Somali fishermen between the ages of 17 and 19 manage to highjack the ship along with its crew of 20 and 17000 metric tons of cargo bound for Mombasa, Kenya.

 

Four Somali Fishermen looking for recompense.

As purely a docudrama, Captain Phillips (2013) is another exciting outing for the Surry born Paul Greengrass, director, screenwriter and former journalist who specialises in dramatisations of real life events for example Resurrected (1989), Bloody Sunday (2002), United 93 (2006) and 2010’s Green Zone. Strangely enough it was Ron Howard who was originally down to direct Captain Phillips and Greengrass was due to helm Rush (2013) but they ultimately swapped projects to the improvement of both movies I would suggest.  

 

Taking over the vast ship and its twenty crew!

In probably what is the best role of his long career Tom Hanks, who plays Phillips, is superb and its his acting that gives this movie a tension that keeps its audience on the edge of it seat for over two hours. But also mention must be made of the Somali born actor Barkhad Abdi in his debut role as the charismatic leader of the fishermen and the new Captain of the hijacked cargo ship.  Along with the wide screen cinematography by regular Ken Loach DoP Barry Ackroyd, and the battle of wits between the ‘boy’ and the middle-aged sea captain are worth the admission price alone. Obviously this movie will be compared with Tobies Lindholm’s A Hijacking (2012), which unlike Greengrass’s film is ‘not about an actual hijacking but about the people involved and how it affects them, the technicalities of negotiation and the monitory value of human life’[1]. Each was shot on water and in real ships that gives both a special type of authenticity.

 

One sided negotiations continue.

As usual with an American budgeted film it makes only minimal effort to explain why the Somali’s go to such extremes, concentrating on the ‘heroic’ actions of the ships Captain ‘although some crew members have considered him as reckless’[2] Various reports and several news sources have suggested that piracy off the Somalia coast is due in part to illegal fishing and the dumping of toxic waste along its remote shoreline by foreign vessels. In response to this the fishermen began forming armed groups to stop the foreign ships. But because of the unlawful actions, which severely restricted their ability to fish and earn a living, they were forced to look for an alternative income. By turning to piracy the fishermen believed ‘that they were protecting their fishing grounds and exacting justice and compensation for the marine resources stolen’[3].

Tom Hanks with Richard Phillips.

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[1] Movie Ramble 13^th September 2013

[2] New York Post October 2013.

[3] Wardheernews.com January 2009.