journal features

movie review - Defense of the Realm

the journal of Michael Werneburg

twenty-eight years and a million words

Tokyo, 2010.02.14

In this Cold War movie, a reporter becomes obsessed with a story following the suspicious death of one of his colleagues following an expose written by the reporter. He spends the next several days in a very lonely cycle of research, interviews, and paranoia. He's convinced that he's being monitored from a flat across the street from his, and he's sure that a boy who jumped a fence to run across an American air force base (in a bid to evade the police) was killed to cover up a state secret. Events sweep the main character along, and until the very last scene we're not sure how it's going to be resolved.

No romantic sub-plot, despite the presence of an attractive woman. No heroics, just a man doing his job and living up to his convictions. No vindication, no changing realpolitik, no justice for the dead, it's just business as usual during the Cold War (and look where that's led us). This is a very good story, told well and without compromise.

Strongly recommended.

rand()m quote

One day you will take a fork in the road, and you're going to have to make a decision about which direction you want to go. If you go one way, you can be somebody. You will have to make compromises and you will have to turn your back on your friends. But you will be a member of the club and you will get promoted and get good assignments. Or you can go the other way and you can do something [...] for yourself. If you decide to do something, you may not get promoted and get good assignments and you certainly will not be a favorite of your superiors. But you won't have to compromise yourself. To be somebody or to do something. In life there is often a roll call. That's when you have to make a decision. To be or to do.

—John Boyd, US Air Force