Farewell

Hurry! Ends Thursday!
at Amherst Cinema
Friday 8/27 through 9/2   1:45   7:00

Based on true, surprisingly little-known events that hastened the downfall of the Soviet Union, FAREWELL is a refreshing reminder that spies are real people leading everyday lives. The film’s principal characters are portrayed by two leading European filmmakers: the Serbian director Emir Kusturica (UNDERGROUND) plays the K.G.B. colonel Sergei Grigoriev, codename "Farewell," and the French director Guillaume Canet (TELL NO ONE) is his French connection, Pierre Froment. Sergei, disenchanted with Communism under Leonid Brezhnev, is a bulky, bearish middle-aged man with a wife, Natasha (Ingeborga Dapkunaite), and a rebellious teenage son, Igor (Evgenie Kharlanov).  Although Sergei still believes in Communist ideals, Soviet life under Brezhnev is so immobilized by bureaucracy that existence in Moscow is now steeped in an atmosphere of paranoia and duplicity; things have to change.  In passing top-secret documents to Pierre, a nervous, low-level milquetoast who works for a French company in Moscow, Sergei hopes to weaken the Soviet Union and allow a freer life for Igor, who has no knowledge of his father’s traitorous activities.

Director Christian Carion.  112 mins, Rated R.  In French with subtitles