[1605 words]
I re-watched Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy today and it stands out as different from any major production I’ve seen of late. When I first saw it at the cinema it was with an ex-girlfriend with whom I was sharing a house (we both knew the landlord personally) and it was a compromise choice. My impression was perhaps tarnished by the personal drama that unfolded in my life afterwards.
Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, however, is worth revisiting. It is drama as drama should be: slow, thoughtful, self-controlled, emotions signalled by an uncontrollable tear, not a childish tantrum. The near-final scene depicts a lover shooting a beloved who betrayed his country, that tear running untouched down his cheek as he inflicts justice for his country, despite being the one person who both loves and is loved by his victim. It is poignant and meaningful, his thought process implied by his action and sadness.
There is no outburst, as we would typically see in a modern storyline. He does not shout to the world, pull strings and get all the nastiness reversed. He doesn’t have a heart-to-heart with the traitor, persuade him to turn good and live happily ever after. There is no undoing the betrayal; there is no deus ex machina in this script in which evil people are redeemed and the evil they’ve done forgotten or magicked away. There is only pain, sorrow and justice, of a sort.
It’s not conventionally uplifting: it’s not a story in which everything is alright in the end, in which love conquered all and giving in to one’s feelings somehow made everything right. But it is inspiring: you realise the value of loyalty and of betrayal. You see and feel, viscerally, through the atmospheric portrayal, how things can never be quite right again, even though by the end ‘good’ has triumphed. That inspires people to be better: to not do bad things in the first place.
Messages of easy forgiveness and no lasting consequences are toxic positivity of the worst kind. They might make you feel good about all the dodgy things you’ve done, and ready to reconcile with people who’ve been a bit sharp with you, but our stories rarely portray people just being a bit mean to each other. They show real, problematic wrongs being forgiven and forgotten as if nothing ever happened, and that’s a toxic encouragement to think little of such wrong.
When two sides are engaged in real conflict, not childish spats, real injustices happen: irredeemable wrongs, lives wasted, suffering experienced. Letting it continue might cause more suffering, and sometimes the only practical solution is some form of reconciliation, in which criminals are absolved for the sake of the future. This is not just or ideal: it is a practical necessity to overcome entrenched conflict which damages everyone. If ‘Good’ had great power, it would not be right to forgive all the criminals and forget their crimes. That’s a lawless society without justice. The only reason for mass forgiveness is because those who’ve done wrong are too powerful: rival factions are evenly-matched, or they are guerillas and resistance fighters who are near-impossible to root out.
In these two ways, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy is a shocking rarity, because it is not childish. It does not show people displaying emotion as if this is the only, or best, way to deal with having feelings (or is in any way productive rather than self-indulgent); and it does not pretend that a conflict worth telling a story about can be magicked away by the end of the story.
I am so accustomed to my action films, my thrillers, and especially modern dramas and anything that pretends to comedy containing comic relief that is not funny: people in awkward situations making fools of themselves in an entirely unrealistic way. Embarrassment and awkwardness does not amuse me, and most people will work hard to avoid them too in real life. Even though Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy is dry, with a slow pace that befits a drama rather than a modern thriller, I found it compelling viewing. The occasional social awkwardness isn’t overplayed: it’s intrinsic to the situation and demonstrates the power of whatever drive compels the character to remain in the situation and endure the discomfort. Every single character is believable; tension comes from the plot, rather than the pale substitute of immediate social tension.
Some people might find the world depicted, drab, male, quiet, pregnant with things unsaid, to be horrific. It is my world. I have lived, and live, in a drab, male, quiet world in which I bite back idle thoughts and say only what I’ve reflected on at least a second time. If the atmosphere repulses you, seems alien or unbelievable, you are a person who most needs to watch the film, to understand that this is real life, not only in the ‘70s, but now, for millions of people.
I also find the depiction of loyalty and principle to be deeply moving. Control, Smiley, and some other characters (I don’t want to give away even more of the plot) have personal preferences, ambition, desires, that are very deeply held. On numerous occasions in the film people put their job above their personal lives. You can interpret this according to your personal morality, as we are not given internal monologues explaining their thought processes, so it could be loyalty to the job, to colleagues, to their country or to more abstract principles that broadly coincide with these things.
Whatever the reason, we see people recognise that doing the right thing can involve sacrifice of personal relationships and can be in conflict with personal feelings. This is another message that modern media far more often contradicts. Relationships are the goal, the ultimate achievement, and writers go to great lengths to make saving the world and a relationship align; often a character will save a relationship, prioritising personal feelings, and it will miraculously turn out, through unforeseen consequences, to be vital to the important part of the plot.
All these parables of pursuing selfish gratification run me the wrong way. Heroism isn’t in selfishly pursuing one’s own desires and, through pure chance, having things work out for you. This wish fulfilment fantasies for the vice-ridden and incompetent are sad gruel for the soul. Heroic stories should inspire people to be better, not comfort them that being the rock-bottom dregs of humanity can be fine. Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, with its introverted, self-controlled, thoughtful protagonist demonstrates that heroism doesn’t have to be brash, physical and bullish.
It is in this way, despite depicting a very male-dominated world, a better feminist production than any She-Hulk series should claim to be. We don’t need to depict women doing the obnoxious self-confident, do-it-all-myself arrogance of stereotypical male heroes, nor show men trying to be self-confident go-getters but instead embarrassed nonentities. We need to depict heroism in more, and probably better, forms. This is what undermines machismo: showing that human character can be better than that, rather than that women can do it too.
These are real people: human, flawed, but committed. And there is more nobility in that than any embarrassing sequence of awkwardness, Mary Sue, or macho fantasy can conjure up.
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