Ken Loach’s controversial Cannes entry in 1990, which won him the Jury Prize, HIDDEN AGENDA is a faction political thriller sets in apowder kegBelfast during theNorthern Ireland Troubles.
An American civil rights lawyer Paul Sullivan (Dourif) is crassly murdered along with a Provisional IRA sympathizer by British security force en route to a covert meeting with his secret source, a mysterious Captain Harris (Roëves). Paul’s aggrieved girlfriend and colleague, Ingrid Jessner (McDormand), remains in Belfast to seek out the truth, and soon is assisted by the righteous police detective Peter Kerrigan (Cox), designated by the Great Britain to lead the investigation.
Congruent with Loach’s rigid, anti-sensational stock-in-trade, HIDDEN AGENDA is, paraphrasing its closing quote from James Miller, a former MI5 agent, "like the layers of an onion, the more you peel them away, the more you feel like crying”, a somber police procedural strenuously resorting in verbal sparring to piece together the jigsaw of a conspiracy theory which implicates some insidious maneuvers from UK's Conservative party with regard to Margaret Thatcher’s rise to power, then poignantly shades into a hammer blow to those who uphold an idealist view on political subterfuges. At least for once, it is not the usual suspects of IRA who are in the receiving end of the diatribe, but the whole rotten democratic polity of the Great Britain, iniquity operated by the powers that be and they are not ashamed, because they cannot be touched. In Loach’s all-fired persistence, the reveal (not so shocking to those who are world-weary or cynical), resounds with a cauldron of self-defeat, angst, exasperation and disillusionment.
As a pacy thriller, Loach circumspectly orchestrates a fringe approach to downplay all the suspense usually default in the genre (no bombastic car-chasing, fistfight or firefight). The truth-seeking process is intriguingly hard-hitting and hardly impeded by any red herrings or devious plotting (a secret tape is the McGuffin),the resistance is brazenly from the bureaucratic backscratching among top brass by way of face-to-face hectoring (a bumptious Jim Norton is a standout among the squadron of supporting players as the head of the constabulary Mr. Brodie) and Brian Cox is redoubtable as a stout rock refusing to budge from mounting pressure, which makes his powerlessness and concession all the more telling in the coda. Yet, in a pivotal scene with Harris, one can manifestly sense his contempt for the latter, whom he summarily deems as a traitor seeking refuge from IRA, no one can conduct disinterestedly where hardened bias and congenital patriotism can penetrate through one’s head as easy as falling off a log.
Kerrigan's astute ambiguity is refracted by Frances McDormand’s impassioned performance as Ingrid, who is at once ingenuous and intrepid, and doesn’t succumb the disheartening reality check solely because she is an outsider, she has nothing else to lose in the purgatory besides her own life, but the film comes to a halt when Kerrigan retreats back from his mission, Loach doesn’t want a feel-good deus ex-machina to sabotage his scrutinizing endeavor (otherwise, in a lesser hand, it would be very possible to deploy a secret-recording from Kerrigan of his confab with two high-rank accomplices to turn the table in the eleventh hour), because he doesn’t need his films to please everyone, HIDDEN AGENDA is a provocation, but an intelligent one, Mr. Loach masterfully forces us to face a most inconvenient truth with his highly matter-of-fact modality, and its repercussions are here to stay.
referential points: Ken Loach’s KES (1969, 8.3/10), THE WIND THAT SHAKES THE BARLEY (2006, 7.2/10).
Ken Loach’s controversial Cannes entry in 1990, which won him the Jury Prize, HIDDEN AGENDA is a faction political thriller sets in apowder kegBelfast during theNorthern Ireland Troubles.
An American civil rights lawyer Paul Sullivan (Dourif) is crassly murdered along with a Provisional IRA sympathizer by British security force en route to a covert meeting with his secret source, a mysterious Captain Harris (Roëves). Paul’s aggrieved girlfriend and colleague, Ingrid Jessner (McDormand), remains in Belfast to seek out the truth, and soon is assisted by the righteous police detective Peter Kerrigan (Cox), designated by the Great Britain to lead the investigation.
Congruent with Loach’s rigid, anti-sensational stock-in-trade, HIDDEN AGENDA is, paraphrasing its closing quote from James Miller, a former MI5 agent, "like the layers of an onion, the more you peel them away, the more you feel like crying”, a somber police procedural strenuously resorting in verbal sparring to piece together the jigsaw of a conspiracy theory which implicates some insidious maneuvers from UK's Conservative party with regard to Margaret Thatcher’s rise to power, then poignantly shades into a hammer blow to those who uphold an idealist view on political subterfuges. At least for once, it is not the usual suspects of IRA who are in the receiving end of the diatribe, but the whole rotten democratic polity of the Great Britain, iniquity operated by the powers that be and they are not ashamed, because they cannot be touched. In Loach’s all-fired persistence, the reveal (not so shocking to those who are world-weary or cynical), resounds with a cauldron of self-defeat, angst, exasperation and disillusionment.
As a pacy thriller, Loach circumspectly orchestrates a fringe approach to downplay all the suspense usually default in the genre (no bombastic car-chasing, fistfight or firefight). The truth-seeking process is intriguingly hard-hitting and hardly impeded by any red herrings or devious plotting (a secret tape is the McGuffin),the resistance is brazenly from the bureaucratic backscratching among top brass by way of face-to-face hectoring (a bumptious Jim Norton is a standout among the squadron of supporting players as the head of the constabulary Mr. Brodie) and Brian Cox is redoubtable as a stout rock refusing to budge from mounting pressure, which makes his powerlessness and concession all the more telling in the coda. Yet, in a pivotal scene with Harris, one can manifestly sense his contempt for the latter, whom he summarily deems as a traitor seeking refuge from IRA, no one can conduct disinterestedly where hardened bias and congenital patriotism can penetrate through one’s head as easy as falling off a log.
Kerrigan's astute ambiguity is refracted by Frances McDormand’s impassioned performance as Ingrid, who is at once ingenuous and intrepid, and doesn’t succumb the disheartening reality check solely because she is an outsider, she has nothing else to lose in the purgatory besides her own life, but the film comes to a halt when Kerrigan retreats back from his mission, Loach doesn’t want a feel-good deus ex-machina to sabotage his scrutinizing endeavor (otherwise, in a lesser hand, it would be very possible to deploy a secret-recording from Kerrigan of his confab with two high-rank accomplices to turn the table in the eleventh hour), because he doesn’t need his films to please everyone, HIDDEN AGENDA is a provocation, but an intelligent one, Mr. Loach masterfully forces us to face a most inconvenient truth with his highly matter-of-fact modality, and its repercussions are here to stay.
referential points: Ken Loach’s KES (1969, 8.3/10), THE WIND THAT SHAKES THE BARLEY (2006, 7.2/10).
文/鬼脚七
《致命档案》与其说讲述的是一个政治事件或者阴谋，不如说在更深的程度上，肯•洛奇在年过知天命之年对无情现实的一次喟叹。而影片在一场无结果的调查之后，最终只是收获一个不置可否的空白结局，而对于现实之外的现实生活来说，对于自由的追逐，对于向着强权的挑战，常常也是这样无功而返。
从这个角度来看，影片对于努力相信世界会更好的理想主义者来说无疑是当头一棒，不过肯·洛奇还并没有将注意力放在这个意图之上，影片开始和结束的两次字幕已经将影片置于一种英国特有的反讽语气之下，片头的两次字幕，爱尔兰革命者詹姆斯·拉罗（James Fintan Lalor）所言“爱尔兰的天空和土地，一切所有权都属于爱尔兰人们”，与接下来撒切尔夫人声称的“北爱尔兰是大英帝国的一部分”已经形成了强烈的反差和矛盾，而影片本身也是在伦敦政府和爱尔兰共和军的冲突背景下进行的。然而与一般政治惊悚片不同的是，肯·洛奇并不简单地将其中任何一方置于道德的正面或者反面地位，克里根在调查案件过程中所经历的心理挣扎正是这种体现，克里根从一开始自信满满，以揭示真相为己任，不仅在和警察局长的交谈中态度傲慢，并且气势咄咄逼人。确实，在影片此前为我们建立起来的情节和情感逻辑下，杀害人权组织律师的政府和警察已经被我们定位在了“恶”的一面，我们在这里很容易认同克里根的态度和情感。然而随着影片和调查的深入，我们伴随着克里根一起，在经历这种理想逐渐崩碎的过程。代表英国政府进行调查的身份使得他当然无法站在爱尔兰共和军的立场上去反对北爱尔兰政府（更何况80年代带有极左倾向的爱尔兰共和军与恐怖组织无异），而身为执法者的良知却又迫使他要去追寻这个单独事件（美国人权律师被谋杀）背后的事实真相。两极的矛盾始终在影片过程中不断拉锯，克里根的左右摇摆也随着影片进程不断反复，在去酒吧见哈里斯的过程中，他的心理天平朝向“反抗”一极的倾斜达到了极值。在见到哈里斯之前，与一位共和军分子的谈话中，英格丽说道“你们杀害了很多无辜的人”，得到的回答则是，“是的，无辜的人，但我们得为了自由去战斗”，这种极具说服性的理论在这里为克里根和英格丽在接下去的剧情中接受哈里斯请求他们帮忙公布英国政治阴谋的要求做好了铺垫，也使克里根走到了“雷池边缘”。但是需要提到的是，肯·洛奇始终在避免对两方做简单的评价，爱尔兰共和军究竟是在“争取独立”还是“制造恐怖”似乎是一个硬币的两面，肯·洛奇绕开了这个话题的敏感性，而把注意力从这个民族冲突转移到一个外部事件上去，英国政府的在竞选期间的政治手腕和密谋在这个时候被揭露出来，顺利地接替了民族矛盾而成为克里根调查的主要方向。
克里根面对的问题显然是层层深入的，此前从一桩意外事件开始的调查如今牵扯出英国政府高层的竞选阴谋，这使得他自己也深陷其中，难以脱身。我们可以看到在这里，他经历了最为痛苦的抉择。他发现就算那些政客在他面前可以坦言自己当年在竞选中确实采用了“非法手段”，但他仍然把他们毫无办法，相反，却使自己举步维艰。在事实摆在面前之后，克里根问和他同来的督察“如果我坚持下去会怎么样”，得到的答案无疑是残酷的，“没有人会支持你，而人们对此失去兴趣之后，双方和解，你就会被抛弃”。但是这正是事实，政治和体制的强大力量这个时候毫不遮掩地暴露出来，在巨大的政治利益和社会利益面前，任何个人的权利微不足道——即便这个人是个坚持正义的勇士。片中的政客以这种带有嘲讽性的姿态出现，毫无疑问地告诉克里根，我承认你是正确的，但是你必须是错的。正义不是在任何时候都需要被贯彻，世界需要谎言和欺骗。克里根，以及英格丽所代表的，对于纯粹的公平正义的追求在现实面前不堪一击，于是克里根不得不承认，“我从一开始就被操控着”。但是也需要注意的是，正如肯·洛奇在之前没有对于英国政府和爱尔兰共和军做出简单的判断一样，在这里也没有对理想主义的改革者或是顽固的体制做出轻易的评价，即便我们在机场的一场戏中会看到英格丽过激的想法和举动，而对于无奈的克里根抱有同情和理解的感情，但是影片当中仍然使英格丽保有了那盘重要的录音带作为证据，她此后的结果与命运仍然未可知。可以说，肯·洛奇或许留给了这些在现实面前螳臂当车的盲目革新者一点微薄的希望。
影片至此，在影片一开始的矛头所向已经荡然无存，克里根只能选择怅然地离开爱尔兰，坐上飞机回到伦敦。机场在这里成为这种情绪的场景外化，来来往往的人群所带来的无来处无归处的脱力感和克里根在这场调查结束时面对的这场混乱和荒谬形成了照应关系。影片最后定格在英格丽独自继续挑战体制，而克里根走向登机口的画面中，片尾字幕此时升起，“就像洋葱一样，你剥开的越多，你就越想哭。在这个国家有两种法律，一种是给安全局用的，另一种给斗升小民。”在影片中观众随着真相揭示的过程一点点积累起来的所有指向不公平和罪恶的情绪在这里都化为一种嘲讽，一种无力改变，但也绝不妥协的嘲讽，正如英格丽所说的，在这一切背后，是那只看不见的巨手。
原载《看电影》2014年03月中，有删改，原题“看不见的手”