The True Alfred Redl


After learning some things about the life of Alfred Redl, I wish someone would make a more accurate version of his life. I loved Szabó's movie, but Redl was a real bastard in life - blackmailed into betraying his country, working as a double agent for a decade before being captured, responsible for the deaths of thousands.

In this movie he was a poor victim caught in a political trap, like a character in a Kafka novel. Does he really deserve to be turned into a hero?

This world is a comedy to those that think, a tragedy to those that feel.

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I suppose Szabo´s objective was to make some kinda point about the state´s power over individual destiny and how pawns like folks in Redl´s position are sacrificed, but whether it justifies a complete whitewash of a man who by all accounts was a vain, greedy, sly as-hole, is a different matter. And, on a different note, I would have also expected the film to show much more of the actual spying activities - here, it´s only alluded to a couple of times, almost as an afterthought (meanwhile making a big show of Redl´s growing righteous disgust with the country´s leadership). I´m not quite happy with this film.



"facts are stupid things" - Ronald Reagan

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