Atomic Blonde is a film about living through the end of the world.
Adapted from Antony Johnston and Sam Harts graphic novel The Coldest City, David Leitchs espionage thriller is set primarily in Berlin against the backdrop of the fall of the Berlin Wall. The individual elements of the plot are standard spy thriller stuff: There are two sides fighting over a MacGuffin that could radically alter the balance of power, several untrustworthy double agents, innocents who get caught in the crossfire.
Indeed, Atomic Blonde seems to deliberately invite comparisons to John le Carrs Cold War thrillers. Toby Jones is cast as a shady and careerist MI6 handler, evoking his role in Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy six years earlier. The film refers to the real-life C as the head of British intelligence operations to add a hint of authenticity, just like le Carrs novels. Even the title of the source comic feels like an allusion to le Carrs own Berlin-set masterpiece, The Spy Who Came In from the Cold.
However, what distinguishes Atomic Blonde from the work of le Carr is the way in which the film filters le Carrs cynicism and wariness through a fin de sicle nihilism. Le Carrs plots tend to be tight and well-structured; his characters suffer at the whims of forces outside their control, but those forces at least move according to a discernible internal logic. In contrast, the plot of Atomic Blonde is a deliberate mess. Its character motivations are fuzzy, its internal logic hazy at best.
The plot of the movie focuses on MI6 agent Lorraine Broughton (Charlize Theron), who is dispatched to Berlin to solve the murder of James Gascoigne (Sam Hargrave) and identify the identity of the double-agent Satchel, who has been passing British secrets to the Russians. Her point of contact is local agent David Percival (James McAvoy), who has in the absence of a British embassy to control him gone somewhat native.
The plot of Atomic Blonde makes more sense in terms of spy movie clichs than it does in terms of narrative coherence. Unlike Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy, the film is not a mystery. The character arcs seem determined by characters position in the plot and the expectations of the genre, rather than developing organically. Percival inevitably serves as Lorraines primary antagonist. Lorraine is inevitably revealed to be Satchel, working for the Americans while playing the British and Russians.
Atomic Blonde is aware of this. Late in the film, Lorraine is watching MTV News as host Kurt Loder broaches the big question of November 1989, Sampling: is it art, or is it just plagiarism? The ending of the movie pushes this idea to the fore, with Lorraine manipulating and splicing recordings to falsify audio evidence that Percival was Satchel all along. Words and ideas are taken out of context, jumbled up, and restructured to present a disjointed but familiar narrative.
This is because Atomic Blonde is more about mood than it is about actual plot. Indeed, the movie repeatedly underscores that the plot of the movie is entirely pointless. Lorraine is told that she has been dispatched to Berlin to recover an atomic bomb of information that could extend the Cold War another 40 years, but the audience knows this is nonsense. The film opens with a title card contextualizing events, reminding audiences that the Berlin Wall fell in November 1989.
As a result, everything in Atomic Blonde is completely pointless. Nothing that happens in the film will prolong the Cold War. All the plotting and scheming means absolutely nothing. Lorraine accuses her superiors of wanting nothing more than to clean up their own messes before the Iron Curtain comes crashing down. Atomic Blonde repeatedly juxtaposes Lorraines adventures with the civil protests taking place across the Eastern bloc, the events that will actually bring the Cold War to an end.
The end of the Cold War represented a seismic shift in the political order. Perhaps prematurely, Francis Fukuyama heralded the end of history. Phillip E. Wegner classified the long nineties the gap between the fall of the Berlin Wall and the attacks of Sept. 11 as life between two deaths. President George H.W. Bush would declare that there was a new world order following the collapse of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War as an ordering principle.
Atomic Blonde embraces the idea of the collapse of the Berlin Wall as an apocalyptic event. West Berlin is portrayed as a truly hedonist space. Cars burning in the night, gunfire flares in the background, fireworks burst in the sky. Percival sees it as a playground, where he has set himself up as something approaching an outlaw king. Even Lorraine becomes embroiled in a doomed affair with French agent Delphine Lasalle (Sofia Boutella).
MI6 classifies Cold War Berlin as the Wild West. Its not an unfair description. Berlin was perhaps the last frontier. The Berlin Wall was one of the last obstructions to globalization, delineating East from West. The Iron Curtain marked the end of the West as firmly as the unyielding Pacific marked the boundaries of the American frontier. The dismantling of the Soviet Union brings all that crashing down. Without borders there can be no liminal spaces. The Berlin Wall was load bearing.
Atomic Blonde reinforces this sense of apocalypse by heightening its style. It juxtaposes horrific violence with catchy pop music (99 Luftballons) or gentle ballads (Father Figure). While the films plot is convoluted nonsense, director of photography Jonathan Sela bathes the film in neon colors to convey mood cool blues, rich reds, alien greens. The films choreography emphasizes the brutality of combat. Lorraines mission might be meaningless, but the pain she feels is real.
Atomic Blonde was released in July 2017. That summer, a lot of walls came crashing down. Two weeks earlier, War of the Planet of the Apes focused on the efforts of the deranged Colonel McCullough (Woody Harrelson) to build a wall to keep out more insanity. Less than a month later, the seventh season finale of Game of Thrones would demolish its own wall, allowing the Night Kings madness to spill forth onto Westeros. Walls and madness seemed linked in the popular imagination.
Of course, none of this was planned or intentional. These examples predate Donald Trumps campaign promise to build a border wall. Game of Thrones had been building to the collapse of that wall since G.R.R. Martin wrote the first book in 1991. Director Matt Reeves insisted that any contemporary parallels in War for the Planet of the Apes were totally unintentional. Atomic Blonde was based on a graphic novel from 2012 about events in 1989. Still, that resonance is inescapable.
This gets at the interesting aspect of the apocalypse at the heart of Atomic Blonde. The audience knows that the world will live through the collapse of the Berlin Wall. As much as Atomic Blonde captures the apocalyptic mood of Berlin on the eve of reunification everything you want is on the other side of fear, promises a neon sign in a dingy basement bar both film and audience understand that the world did not actually end when the wall came crashing down. It simply felt like it did.
This is what is most striking about revisiting Atomic Blonde three years after its release. It is apocalyptic, but it captures the sense of the end of the world as something perpetual and eternal. The world can feel like it is ending, even if it never actually does. This has a strange resonance with the times around the film: the cracks in the established political order during the second decade of the 21st century, two once-in-a-lifetime global recessions, a once-in-a-century pandemic.
Cold War thrillers often present the end of the world in stark terms, through the specter of atomic warfare and nuclear annihilation. These fears even found expression in apocalyptic science fiction of the era. Atomic Blonde takes the structure of a Cold War thriller and applies it to a more existential apocalypse. The threat in Atomic Blonde does not derive from a rigidly defined enemy, but instead from the breakdown of the ordering principles that structure the world itself.
Atomic Blonde understands what it feels like to live through the apocalypse and to discover that the world has not actually ended.
See the original post:
Atomic Blonde Captures What It Feels Like to Live Through the End of the World - The Escapist
- Nihilism Wikipedia - December 8th, 2016 [December 8th, 2016]
- Nihilism | Meaningness - December 10th, 2016 [December 10th, 2016]
- Nihilist movement - Wikipedia - December 22nd, 2016 [December 22nd, 2016]
- Therapeutic nihilism - Wikipedia - December 22nd, 2016 [December 22nd, 2016]
- Nietzsches Analysis of Nihilism | The World Is On Fire - December 26th, 2016 [December 26th, 2016]
- Moral nihilism - Wikipedia - December 26th, 2016 [December 26th, 2016]
- Nihilism @ American Nihilist Underground Society (ANUS) - January 14th, 2017 [January 14th, 2017]
- Nihilism Nihilism - January 25th, 2017 [January 25th, 2017]
- The boredom of nihilism - The Tablet - February 7th, 2017 [February 7th, 2017]
- The Chinese Ford Raptor Website Is Profound And Crazy At The Same Time - Jalopnik - February 9th, 2017 [February 9th, 2017]
- 'Fatal,' by John Lescroart - San Francisco Chronicle - February 9th, 2017 [February 9th, 2017]
- Troy Reimink: 'This Land Is Your Land' doesn't mean what most people think - Traverse City Record Eagle - February 10th, 2017 [February 10th, 2017]
- Brendan Kelly on politics, nihilism, and the benefit of intimate shows - BeatRoute Magazine - February 11th, 2017 [February 11th, 2017]
- Sampha's Process Review: Drifting Through Space - The Picket - February 12th, 2017 [February 12th, 2017]
- Nihilist KMOX Reporter Discusses Existential Horror of February in St. Louis - Riverfront Times (blog) - February 13th, 2017 [February 13th, 2017]
- Why the White House's nihilism is so troubling - Los Angeles Times - February 13th, 2017 [February 13th, 2017]
- Teen Nihilism Erupts in LA Premiere of Fierce, Funny PUNK ROCK by Simon Stephens - Broadway World - February 15th, 2017 [February 15th, 2017]
- Faking It: The Rise of Political Nihilism - Study Breaks Magazine - Study Breaks - February 15th, 2017 [February 15th, 2017]
- Descartes, Nihilist - First Things (blog) - February 16th, 2017 [February 16th, 2017]
- Still Waking Up - First Things (blog) - February 18th, 2017 [February 18th, 2017]
- [ American Nihilist Underground Society (ANUS) :: Nihilism ... - February 20th, 2017 [February 20th, 2017]
- Pissed Jeans Why Love Now review: 'nihilism and cynicism' - Evening Standard - February 24th, 2017 [February 24th, 2017]
- Editorial | By any means necessary including dancehall - Jamaica Gleaner - February 28th, 2017 [February 28th, 2017]
- Reader E-Mailbag: Pussy Hats vs Asshats, How to Save Obamacare, Nihilism in the White House - TheStranger.com - February 28th, 2017 [February 28th, 2017]
- The fight between Nigel Farage and Douglas Carswell is the definition of political nihilism - The Independent - March 1st, 2017 [March 1st, 2017]
- Eye in the Sky: Where Nihilism and Hegemony Coincide - Antiwar.com (blog) - March 1st, 2017 [March 1st, 2017]
- NieR: Automata Starts With Nihilism and Futility at the Installation Screen - Geek - March 8th, 2017 [March 8th, 2017]
- I used to love the working-class nihilism of Sleaford Mods no longer - Spectator.co.uk - March 9th, 2017 [March 9th, 2017]
- Mereological nihilism - Wikipedia - March 11th, 2017 [March 11th, 2017]
- Chinese Academy of Social Sciences' Four Big Critiques - China Digital Times - April 8th, 2017 [April 8th, 2017]
- What Colony Gets Right About Living in an Apocalypse - Gizmodo - April 8th, 2017 [April 8th, 2017]
- We're all political nihilists now - Washington Post - April 8th, 2017 [April 8th, 2017]
- Love, Western Nihilism and Revolutionary Optimism | Global ... - Center for Research on Globalization - April 8th, 2017 [April 8th, 2017]
- Occupy Wall Street: Nihilism And Communism - The Liberty Conservative - April 8th, 2017 [April 8th, 2017]
- What Is Nihilism? History, Profile, Philosophy and ... - April 8th, 2017 [April 8th, 2017]
- Changing This Bumbling Narcissist Impossible, So We Must Depose Him - Common Dreams - June 6th, 2017 [June 6th, 2017]
- A Defense for Moral Absence - Daily Utah Chronicle - June 6th, 2017 [June 6th, 2017]
- Withdrawing from the Paris Accord: Trump is behaving like a nihilist, not a nationalist - Los Angeles Times - June 6th, 2017 [June 6th, 2017]
- China bans 'Soft Burial', a novel about deadly consequences of land reform - Business Standard - June 8th, 2017 [June 8th, 2017]
- Former Grateful Dead Tour Manager Chimes in on Long Strange Trip Documentary - Relix (blog) - June 8th, 2017 [June 8th, 2017]
- 'It Comes at Night' Review - Washington Free Beacon - June 9th, 2017 [June 9th, 2017]
- China's Latest Book Ban: An Award-Winning Novel About the Deadly Consequences of Land Reform - The News Lens International (press release) - June 10th, 2017 [June 10th, 2017]
- How Carmen Ejogo Helped Build a Personal Apocalypse in It Comes at Night - Den of Geek US - June 10th, 2017 [June 10th, 2017]
- SMOKERS' CORNER: DEATH CULTS - DAWN.com - June 11th, 2017 [June 11th, 2017]
- Jim Dey: Another fatal shooting raises the same question why? - Champaign/Urbana News-Gazette - June 11th, 2017 [June 11th, 2017]
- Why Millennials Love 'Rick and Morty' - Study Breaks Magazine - Study Breaks - June 13th, 2017 [June 13th, 2017]
- Searching for the Last Sincere Festival Experience at Download 2017 - Noisey - June 14th, 2017 [June 14th, 2017]
- The book Christians should read instead of 'The Benedict Option' - America Magazine - June 14th, 2017 [June 14th, 2017]
- Film Review: 'All Eyez on Me' - Variety - June 16th, 2017 [June 16th, 2017]
- The Pendulum is Swinging Back Toward Liberal Forward Momentum - HuffPost - June 17th, 2017 [June 17th, 2017]
- Death cults - The Statesman - June 17th, 2017 [June 17th, 2017]
- 5 reasons why 'Wonder Woman' is the superhero movie America needs right now - LGBTQ Nation - June 17th, 2017 [June 17th, 2017]
- Review: Prodigy HNIC - SPIN - June 20th, 2017 [June 20th, 2017]
- The Nihilism of Julian Assange - The New York Review of Books - June 20th, 2017 [June 20th, 2017]
- Atlanta's Videodrome is the Last and Greatest Video Rental Store - Geek - June 21st, 2017 [June 21st, 2017]
- Why Prodigy Was A Once-In-A-Generation Rapper - Complex - June 21st, 2017 [June 21st, 2017]
- Prufrock: How Brainwashing Works, Julian Assange's Nihilism, and Emily Dickinson's Hope - The Weekly Standard - June 21st, 2017 [June 21st, 2017]
- Samantha Bee Mourns the Death of Language - New York Times - June 22nd, 2017 [June 22nd, 2017]
- Trump's bluff on White House tapes wasn't just dishonest it was also a failure - Washington Post - June 22nd, 2017 [June 22nd, 2017]
- In the Almost-Great Baby Driver, Hollywood Goes Asperger's - National Review - June 23rd, 2017 [June 23rd, 2017]
- Against Nihilism - MTV.com - June 23rd, 2017 [June 23rd, 2017]
- Can Robert Mueller be trusted? - Fox News - June 24th, 2017 [June 24th, 2017]
- Opinion: Gingrich admitted Trump was being dishonest - Holmes County Times Advertiser - June 26th, 2017 [June 26th, 2017]
- A Reply to Rod Dreher on Worldview - Patheos (blog) - June 27th, 2017 [June 27th, 2017]
- Vince Staples burns through nihilism and house beats on 'Big Fish ... - Mic - June 29th, 2017 [June 29th, 2017]
- Islamic Terrorists Aren't Nihilists, They're Firm Believers In Evil - The Federalist - June 29th, 2017 [June 29th, 2017]
- On Religion: Wrestling again with the gospel according to Bob Dylan - Herald and News - June 30th, 2017 [June 30th, 2017]
- Wrestling again with the Gospel according to Bob Dylan | Features ... - Bristol Herald Courier (press release) (blog) - July 1st, 2017 [July 1st, 2017]
- Praying for Hemingway | America Magazine - America Magazine - July 1st, 2017 [July 1st, 2017]
- Human Exceptionalism: We Understand Significance - National Review - July 2nd, 2017 [July 2nd, 2017]
- Politics podcast: Anna Krien on the climate wars - The Conversation AU - July 3rd, 2017 [July 3rd, 2017]
- Omnipotence at the price of nihilism - Patheos (blog) - July 6th, 2017 [July 6th, 2017]
- The Philosophy of the Coen Brothers - Film School Rejects - Film School Rejects - July 7th, 2017 [July 7th, 2017]
- Alternative rock comes to Grass Valley - Auburn Journal - July 7th, 2017 [July 7th, 2017]
- Data SheetSaturday, July 8, 2017 - Fortune - July 8th, 2017 [July 8th, 2017]
- Altstadt Echo - Reposed In Nihilism - Resident Advisor - July 11th, 2017 [July 11th, 2017]
- I'd Be A Nihilist If I Weren't A Hedonist - Patheos (blog) - July 14th, 2017 [July 14th, 2017]
- Review: 21 Savage Hits the Limits of Nihilism on Issa Album | SPIN - SPIN - July 15th, 2017 [July 15th, 2017]
- 'Rick and Morty' Creators Explain Why The Show is Horrifying - Inverse - July 22nd, 2017 [July 22nd, 2017]
- Ill Behaviour, review: the chuckles are broad but the grisly nihilism is rather unpalatable - Telegraph.co.uk - July 22nd, 2017 [July 22nd, 2017]