The Little Drummer Girl
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Like so many spy stories before it,The Little DrummerGirlstarts with a bang.
The year is 1979.
The city is Bad Godesberg, West Germany.
And while the stakes for Kurtz are clearly political, they also turn out to be deeply personal.
Kurtz recounts, in vivid detail, how one of the Israeli athletes was castrated before he was killed.
Grow up and hold onto your balls, he counsels.
In fact, Kurtzs zeal for terrorist-hunting is so all-encompassing that it has consumed his identity entirely.
Kurtz is so driven by his mission that hes unmoored from his own sense of self.
By the end, it seems clear that Charlie is poised for a similar role.
It starts with her talents as an actress.
In the middle of an audition, Charlie is encouraged to tell a story about her life.
But heres the thing: Her story is a lie.
As Charlie monologues, director Park Chan-wook reveals glimpses of whatactuallyhappened.
And maybe thats what makes her the perfect woman to play the central role in Kurtzs plot.
It starts with a mysterious stranger who offers to bankroll Charlies entire theater troupe on a trip to Greece.
Just moments later, the romantic illusion is punctured.
First, Becker coldly backs away from his kiss.
So why the grand gesture at the Acropolis?
For one, its a flashy way to reveal how much power he can effortlessly exert.
And now, at last, he has his star.
The young Jewish scholar is disarmed by the Swedish girl who delivers the suitcase containing the bomb.
Salim is undone when he picks up a pretty hitchhiker who turns out to be an undercover agent.
One of the most disturbing things about Charlies situation is the way it engenders extreme paranoia.
The Acropolis sequence in particular is a stunner.
The tragedy of such murders is that they are not committed by murderers.
