rtok88 Reviewers who emphasize the cinematic excellence of this film - superb casting and acting, subtle dramatics, beautiful cinematography - are absolutely correct. But, and this is a very big but, those who see the film for the first time (or watch it repeatedly, as I do) should be aware that as a presentation of the Colonel Redl espionage case, it is preposterous.The best starting point for evaluating the film's historical quotient is to go back to E. E. Kisch's reporting on the case. Kisch, a colorful Prague journalist for the German-language newspaper "Bohemia", broke the case in 1913, several days after Redl's "compulsory suicide" and a misleading report put out by the General Staff in a Viennese newspaper. Within days the efforts of the General Staff to mislead the public about what had happened was undermined by Kisch and then by other reporting within Austria- Hungary and abroad. Kisch came back to the story after WWI (in which he served as a corporal in the infantry, then, after being wounded, as a lieutenant in the army's press service), examined documents, and interviewed Redl's colleagues and participants in the case. This resulted in a short book, published in Berlin in 1924 (the 1931 Czech-German film in the IMDb list credits Kisch as a screenwriter and uses the title of his book for the film's title).There is an English translation of this book in a 1997 bio-anthology of Kisch and his work as the star of "reportage" by the American writer, Harold B. Segel. The other English source for information about Redl's life and career is a 1959 "interpretive biography" by Robert Asprey, "The Panther's Feast"(Asprey managed to get access to ministerial archives with information on the case that had never been seen by journalists or "outsiders" before). John Osborne cited Asprey's book as a source of information for his Redl play, "A Patriot for Me", which, though totally fanciful, gives a more credible psychological portrait of Redl than Szabo does. And there are half-a-dozen books about the case written in German between the 1920s and just a few years ago (to Austrians Redl is "the spy of the (20th) century"). The consequences of Redl's years of very well- paid espionage on behalf of Russia were assumed by his contemporaries to have been devastating at the outset of WWI, though historians argue about just how damaging his treachery was.Szabo creates a portrait of a self-conflicted man destroyed by an opportunistic and self-centered dynasty and government – a man set up for false charges. This is the complete opposite of the truth. While the General Staff was remiss in its opportunity to investigate while Redl was still alive (demanding "honor-code" suicide instead) and went out of its way to suppress the truth, it eventually got out, and the man at the center of the real story should arouse neither sympathy nor admiration: he was venal, crafty, and ice-cold during his approximately 10 years of espionage, betraying classified military information and selling out numerous Austrian agents to Russian intelligence. He did it to fund an extravagant lifestyle (whether or not he was originally blackmailed into spying by the Russians). Historically, he ranks with other high-ranking "moles" within a nation's intelligence service (akin to Kim Philby, for instance).Szabo's portrait of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, the alleged mastermind of a conspiracy to ensnare Redl, is also ridiculous. As unlikable and prejudiced as he was, the Successor, like his uncle, the Emperor, dreaded military scandals, and would hardly have created a plan to publicize a very demoralizing one, given Redl's high position and glorious reputation within the General Staff. In response to the discovery of Redl's treason he went after the General Staff with a vengeance, though, for practical and political reasons he could not have its Chief, General Conrad von Hoetzendorf, dismissed at the time. But, Franz Ferdinand, who thought that Hungarians were the major internal threat to the monarchy's stability, has always been a popular villain in Hungary.Reviewers who comment on the "betrayal theme" in the movie are also right. Szabo's version presents a fictionalized Redl story that reflects the repressive Hungarian state and its obnoxious secret political police in the 1950s, the period of his coming to age and his entry into film-making, when he too was compromised by the system. The Kubinyi family connection of the film is also fictional, possibly based on novels by Robert Musil or Sandor Marai, both well-known in the Hungary of Szabo's youth. In life Redl had been through a series of homosexual dalliances with both civilians and other military men, and one of the factors in his downfall was a rash decision he made during a romantic crisis with his protégé (and former paramour) , Lieutenant Stefan Horinka of the 7th Uhlan Regiment. Though different names are used, this relationship is at least depicted in the 1931 and 1955 Redl films.The events of Redl's fatal day (May 24th-25th, 1913) are an exciting crime and detective story, completely missing in Szabo's film, where Kubinyi is sent as a messenger demanding suicide and Redl agonizes because he knows he is not guilty of treason. In reality, hours after his detection as a spy, Redl was confronted by a commission of four officers who supplied him with a pistol, which he used within several hours to blow his brains out. That's the Redl story, though more recent historians have discovered many flaws in Kisch's version and there are still some unknowns due to destroyed files (done in order to protect General Staff officer reputations) and though Kisch went to his grave in 1948 without fully revealing his "inside" sources of information on the case.So, viewers beware. While Oberst Redl is truly a wonderful film, it strays so far from the record that its presentation of the case is historically meaningless. The meaning comes from Szabo's experience, not Redl's.

kayaker36 Does Brandauer overact as one commenter has charged? At some parts of this brilliant, enigmatic film it could be argued that he does. But some histrionics might be expected from a man alone in a room who has been ordered to shoot himself and be quick about it.This is as much a political movie as a biographical one. It takes many liberties with the historical record. The generally accepted version is that Alfred Redl was being blackmailed by the Russian secret service which had learned of his homosexuality. There are NO Russians in this movie. That Redl was homosexual is only obliquely stated until the final thirty minutes. Indeed, before that he has relations with several women: a Vienna prostitute who acts the Happy Hooker indeed and the (married) sister of a fellow officer.In this film the poor performance of the Austrian armies in World War I is explained by an officer corps more concerned with drinking, card playing and skirt chasing than with military matters. Redl's handing over to his Russian controllers the troop dispositions for the Austrian armies is generally believed to be the cause of the losses during the opening stage of the War. The doomed Archduke Franz Ferdinand's only fault supposedly was that he lacked charm. Here the veteran German actor Mueller-Stahl portrays the **Thronfolger** as a political schemer, a shabby little man (he always appears unshaven) trying to hold the Monarchy together through trumped-up conspiracies and the playing off of one nationality against another.What this picture does best is portray the hollow grandeur of Habsburg Austria during its final years. The sets are magnificent. In one telling scene early in the picture, the boy Alfred, invited to an aristocratic home, spills some coffee and **four** servants come to clean up the spill.One minor quibble: this German-language movie is set in the Austrian Empire, much of it in Vienna the capital, yet no one sounds Austrian. The accent is very different from High German (Americans may compare Kissinger and Schwartzenegger). It would be like "Gone With the Wind" with all the Southerners speaking a kind of Oxford English.

Robert J. Maxwell The film traces the military and romantic careers of Colonel Alfred Redl from his humble beginnings, through a military academy, into the Austro-Hungarian army, to the guileful environment of high political intrigue, to his ultimate altruistic suicide in 1913. It's supposedly based on a true story but since so little seems to be known about the true story, the epistemology of the plot is questionable. Nobody really knows what happened.Brandauer delivers a remarkable performance, displaying great range, especially for a man with a face of such ordinariness. He looks like a guy who should be managing the produce section of a supermarket. Yet for all the talent of Brandauer and director Szabo, we don't get to know too much about what's going on inside Colonel Redl's head. The role doesn't give him a chance to pour out his soul to anyone, and, indeed, it's improbably that the real Redl would have done any such thing. His marriage, to a good-looking babe who loved him, was a matter of convenience. His friendships with his colleagues was constrained out of necessity because of Redl's latent homosexuality and because, after all, real men don't talk about their feelings -- they blow their brains out, but they don't talk about their feelings. Example: How does Redl feel about his early youth in the provinces? Well, while passing through his home town, he instructs the driver to pass the old house in which he spent his childhood, and he rubs a vacancy in the frosted window so that he can stare at it without expression for about five seconds. What's going on? What wheels and gears are turning in his memory, if any? It's anyone's guess.Nice score. Nice period decor and wardrobe. Nice performances from the other players, especially Armin Mueller-Stahl as ruthless Archduke Franz Ferdinand. He has such handsomely clear blue eyes, and he's soft spoken, reasonable, and as treacherous as a rattlesnake. Not that it does him much good, if you remember what started World War I. Elegant music -- Strauss and Chopin. Great marches, full of traps and whistling piccolos and irony. Makes you want to become an officer in the army in 1913 so you can shoot yourself.The film is paced kind of slowly and the intrigue is never overstated, so a certain amount of patience and attention is required. If anyone has a mind adjusted to the lightning-fast editing of a modern action movie, he's unlikely to find this film satisfying. The rest of us will find it interesting and, in the end, rather tragic.

Deirdre E Shaw Underestimated at the time of its release, the film suffered comparison with its flashier predecessor Mephisto. Oberst Redl is tighter, more disciplined and subtle than Mephisto (which was too faithful to the novel on which it was based). Delicately threaded with recurring motifs of father/son relationships and the touch of hands in friendship, lust, play and paternal concern, Szabo's tight control of his material and of his actors, produces powerful explorations of personal desire and personal responsibility, climaxing in the most painfully realistic suicide in cinema. There are consummate acting performances from all the leading actors but especially from Armin Mueller-Stahl as the cynical and manipulative Archduke and Klaus Maria Brandauer, who seduces the camera and manages to make sympathetic a character consumed by ambition.This film was probably underestimated because it needs repeated viewings to appreciate all its layers and nuances. It requires the audience to think, a satisfying exercise but unfortunately unpopular amongst many movie-goers. It is long overdue for reappraisal.