Funeral in Berlin [Guy Hamilton, 1966]:
Director Guy Hamilton is both an underrated master and an underrated master of mise-en-scène, constantly enlivening every terse exchange or moment of surveillance with unique shot compositions and a remarkable use of location. The acerbic wit of Michael Caine's reluctant spy is a huge part of what makes the character so compelling here, as his “anti-Bond” Harry Palmer plays various sides off against one another, while seemingly doing nothing at all.
The Palmer films aren’t merely the “anti-Bond” because they present espionage without action or pyrotechnics, but because they have a greater cynicism about politics and the machinations and manipulations of world events. The titular setting here – grey Berlin, where the ravaged scars of the Second World War stand in contrast against the construction of concrete modernity – is a world away from Bond’s exotic islands and luxury manor houses, but it’s a fitting location for a story that pits the Israeli secret service against former Nazi war criminals, while agents from both sides of the Iron Curtain attempt to manipulate events to their own benefit.
The divided setting suggests the divided loyalty of characters and the people they work for, as interpersonal conflicts are given the same focus as political ones. The sequence where the coffin is transported across the border, and the play on perception and deceptions, seems a precursor to another of Hamilton's films, Live and Let Die (1971) and a reminder of an earlier one, The Party's Over (1964). A quietly complex espionage classic.
