MartinHafer To appreciate "Farewell" it probably helps if you are old enough to remember the time period in which it was set. Intrigues concerning the Soviets probably won't seem all that important to young audiences.The film begins about 1981 (though the time frame is rather vague in the story at times) in the Soviet Union. Sergei Gregoriev is a disaffected KGB official--one who has decided that the best way for his country to progress is for his government to fall. To speed this process, he's decided to leak information to the West. However, instead of going through expected channels, he picks a low-level Frenchman working in his country (Pierre Froment). Froment has no interest in this sort of intrigue and is, reluctantly, pulled into the affair. The name 'Farewell' is the code name Froment's bosses have given the case. What exactly happens next, you'll need to see for yourself, though suffice to say the true story (with some historical license in spots) helped lead to the crumbling of the USSR.While there isn't a lot of information about Gregoriev and the Farewell Affair on the internet, what is there sometimes contradicts the film. His actual name was not Gregoriev but Vladimir Vetrov. A big twist near the end is the US government betraying Gregoriev and casting him to the KGB--which did NOT happen in real life. My wife did a bit of research and found Gregoriev was very self-destructive and came to the attention of the KGB after this alcoholic stabbed a couple people and then implicated himself! Not at all what you'll see in the film--and reason to knock at least a point off the overall score. Still, the film is very tense, very well acted and fascinating throughout. I just wonder why they had to make that jab at the US. Sometimes we, like other countries, deserve it but here it just seemed a bit,...well,...odd.

johnnyboyz Farewell is the wrought piece of espionage spy fiction you didn't really expect to be as good as it is; as is often the case, films and film-makers take it upon themselves to entrust that elements of espionage and distrust between superpowers, or people therein epitomising superpowers, should make for crash-bang, explosive viewing involving very little narrative; very little character and a whole lot of wooden spectacle. It is with open arms then, that we welcome in Christian Carion's 2011 film Farewell; the anti-thesis to Mission Impossible: II or a badly drawn Bond film of the post-Dalton era. The film is one of its ilk that happens to have both a soul and a brain; these characters are people involved in international espionage and some rather dangerous stuff, but they are people involved in such things whilst doing their utmost to maintain families; they are people involved in what they're in, of whom enjoy playing tennis and reading poetry and listening to Queen – they are human beings; they can be overweight; they can wear glasses; they can relax by watching a Western, they are not stock action heroes of a ridiculously photogenic nature; they are not James Bonds darting around in sports cars out-peddling a space orientated laser beam.The scene epitomising how Farewell really is different to most others of its ilk arrives with a snappy sequence set on a park bench between two people; as might be considered standard with any film of this ilk, we witness such a sequence that is often the first thing people think of when certain genre buzz words are mentioned. Here, the already seated man witnesses another slump down next to him so that they may continue their business – business which would result in serious ramifications should either of them be caught. Instead of cutting to the chase and prolonging causality, the new arrival first mutters about how he hates the fact he is having an affair with someone away from his marriage; that his son knows all about it and, he feels, hates him as a result. Such is the film's nature to take something familiar to the genre, or something with which we will identify, and spin it around to encompass character; to encompass problems away from what would usually be the sole and lone body of content; to take an instance as stereotypical as two blokes meeting on a park bench and incorporate some sort of air of both naturality and substance to proceedings.The sense that we're being treated like adults begins with the opening sequence, a procession of found footage depicting numerous things Cold-war orientated ranging from shots taken from the fronts of the Vietnam War to numerous technological advancements of the 1970s alluding to the Space Race. All of it is Cold-War orientated and it arrives without voice-overs informing us of what's what and why we're seeing what we're seeing; there is no brief expositional history lesson. Guillaume Canet pays Pierre Froment, an engineer living in Russia with his family of wife and young daughter; the man observes a television set displaying a McEnroe-Borg tennis match, this sense of there being a fondness for that of duelling; a fondness of keeping up with how two super-powers in a respective field are getting along in their long, intense rivalry prominent.The film is a double-stranded piece, a piece flicking between two men occupying Moscow in the early 1980s doing their utmost to transfer information from secretive sources onto the Americans, and that of the American president of the time in Ronald Reagan (Ward), no less, who dishes it out to his international colleagues, particularly that of then-French Socialist President François Mitterrand (Magnan), when he isn't confining with his own. Pierre's friend is Emir Kusturica's large, life-weary Soviet native to their surroundings Sergei Gregoriev; a man with his own wife and son with whom he does not get along. Sergei uses Pierre as a half-way house in his delivering of top-secret Soviet intelligence which eventually make their way through to the upper-echelons of The White House, a premise spun out by director Carion to really good effect as we delve into this world of lies and power-play.In spite of the two strands and the array of characters, ranging from this lowly Frenchman to the President of the United States himself, it is Pierre's film; a man caught up in this mucky pool of grime and maltrust and having it go on to affect his home life and general well-being. In a subway fairly early on, it is established how efficient and how clinical the police state work; their picking up of an unknown woman after the insinuation Pierre is in trouble reiterates what he is up against - the verbal establishment beforehand of Pierre's inexperience within this field follows that of Sergei's infiltrating of the backseat to his car with enough ease to fool Pierre as to his even being there. In this regard, the tension is often palpable; if for the fact we often fear Pierre's capture, something that would not stop the film from carrying on with one of its other equilibriums but as to whether his actions will destroy his exemplary home situation and those he holds dear to him. Farewell is the spy thriller peering in at the private lives of these people; the primary stuff about passing on information and keeping informants secret acting as a mere premise to fascinating accounts of how these people exist with themselves; with their families and with one another, the bulk of it making for really good value – you could sure do worse for a thriller.

jtwcosmos "Keep your money."This is the story of how the Soviet Union lost the game. It is a story based - loosely - on the real story of the man who gave the French enough information to trigger the end of the Cold War.The movie is categorized as a thriller, but it is no ordinary one. It has a good story, a good script, an excellent director and a great cast. The music is moving and the cinematography is beautiful.This is a movie that makes art for art's sake and nothing more. A movie only the Europeans could make. There is no commercial pressure, there is no need to add anything to the plot, or to make the story anything more (or less) than it is. It is the story of the man who wanted to change the world, and who succeeded.The director does a terrific job. The camera walks, runs, flies high and low, in search of the perfect angle, the story moves easily from one point to the next and the attention to detail is overwhelming. There are moments when the action stops and only the camera moves. Combined with a brilliant sound track, the result is a masterpiece.The actors are perfectly selected. Emir Kusturica is the bohemian KGB officer, a role that fits his bearish physique like a glove. Guillaume Canet is the unlikely counterpart and he does a brilliant job. Both man are also accomplished film directors in their own right, and I don't think I've ever seen a movie with main characters like these. They have a special, natural and effortless connection with the camera and with each other, and the film benefits tremendously. The women are there only to make their life difficult and to show how they each deal with their "domestic" problems and weaknesses. But if their roles are small, they do an excellent job.In other roles, there is a cast of who's who of Hollywood. If they would give awards for best supporting cast, this movie would take the cake. Fred Ward is Ronald Reagan, the boss of the United States, Willen Defoe is the boss of the CIA, David Soul has a tiny role and Diane Kruger has a very recognizable cameo appearance.The music is moving, when it is meant to be moving, and simply noise, when it is meant to be nothing else.If there is one flaw that I found, is that the movie repeats itself too much. There are several great ideas and scenes, but they tend to be repeated a lot. Even the greatest idea is a masterpiece only once. The second time it is not so great and the third time it is just... boring. The movie could have been shorter and it could have left some things to the viewer's imagination.There is also the choice of language. There is French, there is Russian and there is English. While the use of all three languages adds to the authenticity of the story, the constant and relentless switching between them gets tiresome, sooner or later. And since the copy I had had no subtitles, some of the Russian dialog remained a mystery. Thank God! there were no Chinese or Japanese involved.Farewell. A great movie, even if a little self-indulgent. 8/10.

liberalgems This is a very empowering, true-story about one man, Sergei Gregoriev, who probably did more to bring down the Communist government in Russia - and end the cold war - than any other person who ever lived! This man should be honored by a postage stamp in every Western country in the world and in every high school history textbook! What an incredibly brave human being!I gained a lot of insights from watching this amazing film. The Russians lost an estimated 26 million people during World War 2. That's 1 in 3 people that died in all of World War 2 did so within the borders of the Soviet Union! I can only imagine the trauma and paranoia that was inflicted on the survivors who later then came to power. It didn't help either that a monster was at the head of government (Stalin) from 1924 to 1953. And, you wonder why the Soviets had a such a mind-boggling intelligence apparatus established throughout the United States? Once this network of spies was dismantled, the Soviet leadership was blind! Out of fear they bankrupted themselves on military spending because they could no longer accurately assess what actual threats the United States posed to them!Sergei Gregoriev, knew how his government would react to such a threat and he sacrificed everything to make it happen. I don't think he would be happy with the gangster capitalism that took Communism's place. But at least there are no more brutal wars fought in desperately poor countries, which have cost millions of lives because of the Cold War! Future generations will thank you for your sacrifice, Sergei Gregoriev!