Manipulation
Director: Pascal Verdosci
Cast: Klaus Maria Brandauer, Sebastian Koch, Marcus Merz, Thomas Douglas
Rating: (M)
3 stars (out of 5)
Echoing the stylistic sentiments of The Lives of Others, Manipulation is a classic Cold War tale of skulduggery and subterfuge, in which every frame is so desaturated you start to wonder if 1950s Europe was clouded in a perpetual inversion layer.
Based on a novel by Walter Mattias Diggelman, the story is set in Zurich and is based on an actual scandal in which the Swiss secretly concocted a plan to acquire a stockpile of atomic weapons.
Staged almost entirely within the clinical confines of the Swiss domestic intelligence agency, an organisation with seemingly unlimited power to spy on Swiss citizens, special agent Urs Rappold (Klaus Maria Brandauer) apprehends the reporter Werner Eiselin (Marcus Merz), who has been photographed liaising with a notorious Soviet spy.
When Eiselin commits suicide, what seemed a cut-and-dried case becomes something completely different. Enter Harry Wind (Sebastian Koch), who is referred to as Major Wind, for all the public relations work he does for the Swiss military.
He suggests the incriminating photographs might have been faked and Rappold starts to question the role he is unwittingly playing (or being played) in.
Concocted before the advent of digital deception, Manipulation raises intriguing questions about the reliability of images. But at just under 90 minutes, it doesn't really have a lot of room for detail.
That said, it's wonderfully acted, coolly shot and, by involving the Swiss, a diversion from conventional Cold War narratives.
Best thing: The subtle interplay between Brandauer and Koch.
Worst thing: Lack of detail about the personal lives of the protagonists.
See it with: A keen eye for detail.
