Diplomatie (Diplomacy)(外交手腕)

Sometimes, it doesn't take much to produce a good movie: an excellent script full of credible situational logic during inherently epic times and two excellent actors able to render to bring out the relevant dramatic conflict with their eyes, their gestures, their postures, their tone of voice and even their well-timed and eloquent silences. Sprinkle in a wee bit of music and you'll have just the right kind of mood of an entire epoque. But oftentimes, what appears to be the simplest demands may in practice turn out to be most difficult feat in the world. Maybe that's because the simpler something is, the easier any error will show up.

With Volker Schlöndorff's ("The Tin Drum") Diplomatie (Diplomacy) (  (外交手腕 ), that perilous walk through the tightrope of near perfect simplicity appeared to have been miraculously crossed. And with what unbearable tension! A great deal of credit must go to Cyril Gely who wrote the play upon which the film is based and not a little of it must go to the director himself who adapted it for the silver screen such that all the tension comes out within the  narrow confines of a small 19th century hotel room in Paris: the action is carried forward almost entirely by the cut and thrust of its dialogues, expertly delivered by two veteran male actors  André Dussollier, playing General Raoul Nordlin, the Swedish consul to the Vichy Government during the final stages of WWII and Niels Arestrup, playing Général Dietrich von Choltitz, the Nazi commander charged with the unenviable task of defending greater Paris against the Allies shortly before its liberation and if need be, of blowing up every meaningful historic buildings in that beautiful city: the Tour Eiffel, the Opera, Arc de Triomphe, the Palais de la Concorde, the Chambre de Deputés, the Gare du Nord, Gare du Sud, Gare de Lyon, the Notre Dame, the Louvre, Pont Neuf, Pont Alexandre etc. but not before being asked to remove a few prize portraits from the Louvre before doing so by his superior, Caravaggio (if I remember correctly) but which doesn't include the Mona Lisa.


The French Resistance had assigned to Raoul Nordlin the task of persuading Général von Choltitz to abandon Hitler's command to him to devastate Paris. But shortly before his posting, Hitler has passed a law which empowered the Nazi government to execute the immediate family members of any field general who for whatever reason should refuse to execute any orders of the Chancellor. How is Nordlin to do that?  By appealing to the general's love of beauty of the Parisian architecture? By enticing him with the gratitude of all Frenchmen and even of the entire world  for choosing not to destroy Paris? By convincing him of the hopelessness of Germany ever being able to resist the impending Allies attack? By pointing out the meaninglessness of sacrificing the monuments of European civilization just for a few days' time for Germany to prepare slightly better to defend itself against its inevitable demise? By appealing to his sense of mercy to spare the lives of a more a million Frenchmen, including women and children, to whom Paris was home? To evoke his sense of shame for killing the innocent? By convincing him of the utter madness of the Führer or Himmler? And if he were to follow suit, his own madness? No, only by appealing to his desire to protect his wife and family by offering a safe passage for them into neutral Switzerland. The General was not a monster. Despite what appears to be a cool exterior and a will of iron, he was human, after all.

Diplomatie shows us a truth which Napolean had long recognized: the power of words to move the human mind, the human heart into action or in this case, the cessation of action: "a pen is mightier than an entire battalion." The Chinese knew that too: "a man of letters draws a single line: the general runs around the city three times". Nordlin promises to save General Von Choltitz's family. And thanks to him, Paris now is still a city worth seeing, after close to three score and ten years. Thanks to him too, for two hours, we got to hold our breath  in the dark of IFC Palace, for an unforgettable movie and a magnificent display of some equally unforgettable acting from two of the greatest "actors" alive. They are the soul of this film. I just learned that before the film was adapted for the cinema, a drama of the same title by Cyril Gély had already been running for 3 years at the Théâtre de la Madeleine in Paris. No wonder the acting is so good.