Colonel Redl

This film evokes powerfully the period and place in which it is set. Its plot is both interesting and intelligent. The acting is of the highest calibre; both Klaus Maria Brandauer and Gudrun Landgrebe are both world class artists. Viewers should see more German film. This is a stunning piece of work by a director of great insight and ability.

Reviewers who emphasize the cinematic excellence of this film - superb casting and acting, subtle dramatics, beautiful cinematography - are absolutely correct. But, and this is a very big but, those who see the film for the first time (or watch it repeatedly, as I do) should be aware that as a presentation of the Colonel Redl espionage case, it is preposterous.

The best starting point for evaluating the film's historical quotient is to go back to E. E. Kisch's reporting on the case. Kisch, a colorful Prague journalist for the German-language newspaper "Bohemia", broke the case in 1913, several days after Redl's "compulsory suicide" and a misleading report put out by the General Staff in a Viennese newspaper. Within days the efforts of the General Staff to mislead the public about what had happened was undermined by Kisch and then by other reporting within Austria- Hungary and abroad. Kisch came back to the story after WWI (in which he served as a corporal in the infantry, then, after being wounded, as a lieutenant in the army's press service), examined documents, and interviewed Redl's colleagues and participants in the case. This resulted in a short book, published in Berlin in 1924 (the 1931 Czech-German film in the IMDb list credits Kisch as a screenwriter and uses the title of his book for the film's title).

There is an English translation of this book in a 1997 bio-anthology of Kisch and his work as the star of "reportage" by the American writer, Harold B. Segel. The other English source for information about Redl's life and career is a 1959 "interpretive biography" by Robert Asprey, "The Panther's Feast"(Asprey managed to get access to ministerial archives with information on the case that had never been seen by journalists or "outsiders" before). John Osborne cited Asprey's book as a source of information for his Redl play, "A Patriot for Me", which, though totally fanciful, gives a more credible psychological portrait of Redl than Szabo does. And there are half-a-dozen books about the case written in German between the 1920s and just a few years ago (to Austrians Redl is "the spy of the (20th) century"). The consequences of Redl's years of very well- paid espionage on behalf of Russia were assumed by his contemporaries to have been devastating at the outset of WWI, though historians argue about just how damaging his treachery was.

Szabo creates a portrait of a self-conflicted man destroyed by an opportunistic and self-centered dynasty and government – a man set up for false charges. This is the complete opposite of the truth. While the General Staff was remiss in its opportunity to investigate while Redl was still alive (demanding "honor-code" suicide instead) and went out of its way to suppress the truth, it eventually got out, and the man at the center of the real story should arouse neither sympathy nor admiration: he was venal, crafty, and ice-cold during his approximately 10 years of espionage, betraying classified military information and selling out numerous Austrian agents to Russian intelligence. He did it to fund an extravagant lifestyle (whether or not he was originally blackmailed into spying by the Russians). Historically, he ranks with other high-ranking "moles" within a nation's intelligence service (akin to Kim Philby, for instance).

Szabo's portrait of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, the alleged mastermind of a conspiracy to ensnare Redl, is also ridiculous. As unlikable and prejudiced as he was, the Successor, like his uncle, the Emperor, dreaded military scandals, and would hardly have created a plan to publicize a very demoralizing one, given Redl's high position and glorious reputation within the General Staff. In response to the discovery of Redl's treason he went after the General Staff with a vengeance, though, for practical and political reasons he could not have its Chief, General Conrad von Hoetzendorf, dismissed at the time. But, Franz Ferdinand, who thought that Hungarians were the major internal threat to the monarchy's stability, has always been a popular villain in Hungary.

Reviewers who comment on the "betrayal theme" in the movie are also right. Szabo's version presents a fictionalized Redl story that reflects the repressive Hungarian state and its obnoxious secret political police in the 1950s, the period of his coming to age and his entry into film-making, when he too was compromised by the system. The Kubinyi family connection of the film is also fictional, possibly based on novels by Robert Musil or Sandor Marai, both well-known in the Hungary of Szabo's youth. In life Redl had been through a series of homosexual dalliances with both civilians and other military men, and one of the factors in his downfall was a rash decision he made during a romantic crisis with his protégé (and former paramour) , Lieutenant Stefan Horinka of the 7th Uhlan Regiment. Though different names are used, this relationship is at least depicted in the 1931 and 1955 Redl films.

The events of Redl's fatal day (May 24th-25th, 1913) are an exciting crime and detective story, completely missing in Szabo's film, where Kubinyi is sent as a messenger demanding suicide and Redl agonizes because he knows he is not guilty of treason. In reality, hours after his detection as a spy, Redl was confronted by a commission of four officers who supplied him with a pistol, which he used within several hours to blow his brains out. That's the Redl story, though more recent historians have discovered many flaws in Kisch's version and there are still some unknowns due to destroyed files (done in order to protect General Staff officer reputations) and though Kisch went to his grave in 1948 without fully revealing his "inside" sources of information on the case.

So, viewers beware. While Oberst Redl is truly a wonderful film, it strays so far from the record that its presentation of the case is historically meaningless. The meaning comes from Szabo's experience, not Redl's.

"Colonel Redl" (German, 1984): Starring Klaus Marie Brandauer, directed by Istvan Szabo. This is the second film of a trilogy. (The first, "Mephisto", the third, "Hanussen" I do not own, but will try to find for rental.) Here we are in Germany again, but before WWI. A young man decides that the only way to raise himself from his peasant roots is to enter the aristocratic military world – and is willing to do anything to get in, stay in, and advance in. This he does, but there's always The Price. He slowly loses those things and people which held any meaning or joy for him. He finds himself an amateur in a world that is completely Darwinian, and long-practiced in the art of manipulation. Like "Mephisto", the ladder climber seems to reach spectacular heights, only to be tossed down when it most serves those who were never out of control. These films of Szabo start light, start fluffy, and slowly change into foreboding, evil, hopeless stories with NO optimism towards the human spirit, organized groups of humans, or Time being a teacher. They are very insightful essays on these subjects.

Brandauer again shows why reviews of his work often include the word 'magnetic' - You just don't take your eyes off him. His range is remarkable, his control of the minutest gesture superb, the subtlety of his physical screen presence majestic.

Szabo's direction is again precise but not heavy handed. If this doesn't have quite the sweep or sting in the tail of their previous collaboration, Mephisto, it is still one of the finest European films of its time.

The story is superbly crafted; to leave Muller-Stahl's Archduke Franz Ferdinand out until the last hour or so is an outstanding narrative technique, and if Muller-Stahl's performance is a trifle one-note, that's as much due to narrative constraint as actor ability - he's still pretty effective, and its one of his best roles.

Szabo has an ability to investigate history in a curiously personal and touching sense of the individual, but leaving that individual dispassionately, and gazing at him objectively; thus what comes across is a really detailed and involving character struggling against an incredible force of inevitability. Like Visconti, broad strokes, but painted in the minutest of details - only unlike Visconti, full blooded and direct.

It's at times witty, literate and touching, but always beautiful.

At the 1986 OSCAR awards, the Austrian actor Klaus Maria BRANDAUER had his big evening: he was nominated for his supporting role in OUT OF AFRICA and COLONEL REDL (with him in the title role) was in the OSCAR for best foreign language film. Both trophies went into other hands, but that in no way diminishes the importance of COLONEL REDL.

Ostensibly, it's about a spy story in the already ailing imperial-royal Danube monarchy of Austria-Hungary ("Kakania"). But the real subject is Colonel Redl as a typical Kakanian who suppresses his own feelings, crouches upwards and kicks downwards. A star role for Klaus MAria BRANDAUER, who filmed MEPHISTO (OSCAR-winning) and HANUSSEN in the 1980s with director Istvan SZABO. Gudrun LANDGREBE (THE FLAMBED WOMAN) and Jan NIKLAS (GOLDEN GLOBE for ANASTASIA (mini-series)) shine as a relaxed, fluffy sibling pair. Although Colonel Redl is courting Baroness Katalin, he secretly likes her attractive brother Kristof. Yes, such a Kakanian subject had a hard time! Hans Christian BLECH and Armin MUELLER-STAHL (OSCAR nomination for SHINE) can be seen in other roles as heir to the throne Franz Ferdinand.

The film is worth seeing, but also old-fashioned in the best sense. Even when I first watched it in the 1980s, it seemed a bit out of time, but that fits well with the plot. Even back then it was like a homage to good German-language films from the 1950s, albeit with more explicit sex scenes! The film SPIONAGE by Franz ANTEL, released in 1955 and also starring GOLDEN GLOBE winner Oskar WERNER, deals with the same story.

The film, which was awarded the GOLDEN GLOBE and the BAFTA, attracted 251,646 visitors (source: InsideKino) to West German cinemas in 1985.