"The Sympathizer": Double double agents

A seemingly endless web of lies, betrayal and secret identities in the middle of the Cold War. The Sympathizer is a fascinating mini-series by cult director Park Chan-wook(Oldboy, The Handmaiden) and is based on the 2015 bestseller of the same name by Viet Thanh Nguyen. A mixture of agent thriller, war drama and system criticism with a large pinch of satire and black comedy that shouldn't really work, but actually does so brilliantly.

The year is 1975 and the Vietnam War, which has been raging for 20 years, is about to end. The North, supported by the Soviet Union, is on the verge of taking Saigon, the capital of the South, which is allied with the USA. In the midst of this chaos is the nameless Captain (Hua Xuande), a secret agent of the South and, in cooperation with the American CIA, on a constant search for spies from the North. What almost nobody knows is that he is secretly one of these spies himself. Having grown up in the communist North, he managed to infiltrate the South and pass on secret information there from his new high position. However, shortly before the fall of Saigon and the associated victory of the North, he is given a new assignment. Instead of finally celebrating the end of the war and rebuilding the country, he is to accompany a southern general on his escape to the USA and continue his role as a spy. Once there, he becomes increasingly lost in the tangle of the Cold War, whose challenges increasingly push him to the limits of his abilities and shake his seemingly deepest convictions and ideals to the core.

Over the course of its seven episodes,The Sympathizer succeeds in knitting an impressive and, above all, unique agent story. This is because the entire narrative is embedded in the context of a military interrogation of the captain, several months after the actual events. A kind of reappraisal of the story, in which he repeatedly tries to explain, gloss over or justify his earlier actions through voice-overs. Both the reason for his interrogation and capture and the reliability of his statements always remain mysterious and ambivalent. Scenes are repeatedly interrupted by the voice of an interrogating general, who points out discrepancies between the images shown and the captain's earlier statements. Sometimes he sticks to the newer, now shown version, but again and again entire scenes are rewound and replayed with altered details, placed in a different chronological order or first dealt with completely different scenes and events. At times, the authenticity of entire sequences is even questioned in advance and only a version of events is shown that could presumably have happened.

This creates a dynamic and always fragile structure of different storylines. The question of how much of what is shown really happened and which details were only invented for the context of the interrogation remains omnipresent here. The casting also contributes to this surreal atmosphere. Several important roles are played by IronMan actor Robert Downey Jr., who repeatedly appear in the captain's life and sometimes interact with each other. The reason for this multiple casting is not only directly anchored in the story, but also highlights the Captain's unreliability as a narrator.

Series creators Park Chan-wook and Don McKellar always avoid clearly taking sides. Instead, the focus is on illuminating the complexity of the various ideologies and placing diverse, representative individual fates at the center. For example, the Captain's profound and radical hatred of the Western world is not simply explained, but even rationalized through a clever perspective, regardless of the viewer's own political convictions. However, The Sympathizer by no means avoids taking a political stance or even settles for a generic and centrist anti-war statement, but instead probes into the background of the conflict and takes its criticism to a systemic level rather than just a superficial and individual one.

The way in which one of the bloodiest and longest conflicts of the 20th century is illuminated here is a deeply unique and emotional one, particularly through the perspective of the captain. Due to his childhood in the North and his life in the South and later the USA - where he naturally makes new contacts and emotional connections - he literally finds himself between the fronts. He also sheds light on the perspective of Asian immigrants in the USA during this era, which is usually underrepresented in Western media. The focus here is primarily on the systemic discrimination and exploitation of the Asian communities in the USA, which the captain experiences first-hand.

He also occupies a special position, as his mother was Vietnamese and he grew up there, but his father comes from the West, so he himself is also half "white". In this respect, he is not recognized as a true "countryman", neither in Vietnam nor in the West. This is why The Sympathizer is also a story of migration, which is made even more gripping and multi-layered by the surrounding context.

Excellent direction, creative dialog and an unpredictable structure. The Sym pathizer is an exciting, amusing and yet simultaneously terrifying look at the secret battlefields of the Cold War. A unique and nuanced look that is absolutely worth making.

Trailer:

https:// youtu.be/47dRkhiERpE?si=d7Y3wccbnO1h4BZ2