MartinHafer acting seems very natural--story not engaging One thing I have to say about "Triple Agent" is that the acting seemed very natural and convincing. The actors and director (Eric Rohmer in one of his last films) did a very nice job. On the other hand, the film is extremely talky--very, very little actually happens and when things occur, you mostly just hear about them. This makes for a slow film--one that needed some energy infused into it.The film is about a couple--Arsinoé (who is Greek) and her White Russian husband, Fiodor. When I say 'White Russian' I mean that he is a an anti-communist Russian living in Paris after the Russian Revolution. He heads an organization of fellow expatriates and is clearly anti-Soviet. However, as the movie SLOWLY progresses, Arsinoé hears a lot from her husband that confuses her. He seems awfully friendly with the Nazis AND the Communists. And, his business trips to Belgium actually take him to Berlin. What gives? As I said already, not much happens in the film--or at least you don't get to see anything. It's all told through conversations at Arsinoé's home. This style of storytelling is really weak...and the film lost my interest despite the fine acting. A weak script dooms what COULD have been a much more interesting film.

oOgiandujaOo_and_Eddy_Merckx This seems like unusual territory for Rohmer, and yet it is still very much Rohmerian and a very effective film for me.Triple Agent concerns one Fyodor Alexandrovich Voronin and his wife Arsinoe (a Greek). At the age of 22 he was a general in the White Russian army (the Tsarist counter-revolutionaries). However he is now living in exile in Paris, the deputy of a White Russian Military Organisation of dubious relevance.For the most part, the first half of the film is concerned with Arsinoe, we see events through her eyes. She lives in an apartment close to two communist schoolteachers. She paints with some success and discusses politics with them in a naive manner. Voronin is an elusive milky-eyed man who lives a life of extreme duplicity. He is urbane and tender towards Arsinoe with whom however he does not share much in terms of his work.We never witness events, the film is like a play, we only see conversations. The film is elegiac perhaps. An elegy for Arsinoe and Voronin. Voronin but for the revolution would have been Field Marshal of Russia, but instead becomes a minor though brilliant agent, a pawn on a global chessboard.I find it hard to express exactly why but I felt ravished by Rohmer in the first half of the film, perhaps because the viewpoint is all Arsinoe, who is very open and vulnerable, and I identified with her. Later in the film Voronin is seen without his wife, and the feeling of mystery is uncloaked to some extent, but we feel as if Voronin is not just a triple agent, he is profoundly introverted, and he has the feeling of something amputated and searching once again for the main body.The film is tragic, however it is not a melodrama. I think it's one of the most satisfying films I've seen from Eric Rohmer. I don't think it has a very good reputation, that may be because the ending is quite abrupt. I think this allowed the characters to maintain their modesty and dignity and was a graceful gesture from the director in my opinion. I think many people who went to see this won't have been Rohmer fans, and may have been expecting something a little more action packed. What it is, is a lot more, but maybe it missed expectations.

gradyharp Eric Rohmer will undoubtedly sustain in cinema history as a unique writer and director of French films. He is far more interested in dialogue, conversation among his characters, and ideas than he is in plot or storyline development. His films affect many as too didactic, too much like a lecture series on current events or historical events to be considered a movie. Perhaps that is the case, as watching a Rohmer film takes total concentration and thinking.Such is the case for his 2004 TRIPLE AGENT. Set in Paris of 1936-37, it is essentially a re-thinking of a true story that about a spy, a bit of history that is still unsolved. To understand this film requires a working knowledge of the political movements intertwining during the time: France's Popular Front, Hitler's rising influence in Europe, the Stalinist era, the Spanish Civil War with Franco and his adversaries, etc. The mix is all placed in the thoughts and discussions of Fyodor Voronin (Serge Renko), his Greek painter wife Arsinoé (Katerina Didaskalu) and their interactions with the changing people of the political ploys (played with sincere verve by Cyrielle Claire, Grigori Manukov, Dimitri Rafalsky, Nathalia Krougly, Amanda Langlet, Jeanne Rambur, Georges Benoît, Emmanuel Salinger among the large and confusing cast). The 'story' emerges from Fyodor's relationship to the political leanings that pull his attention away from Arsinoé and the complications of his physical structure with his intense involvement in the political and ideological climes.The film works for those with enough savvy to catch all the intrigues of that period in European history. But for a film so completely dependent on rhetoric and smart dialogue this project suffers greatly from the poor subtitles: while most of the French is translated for us, much of the Russian and German is not, as though we all have access to those languages. The result is a static, dry, intense film in which much is lost due to technical flaws. The cast is excellent but the editing and clarity of each character's role falls by the wayside far too often. Rohmer's genius is there, but it is an acquired taste. Would that the viewer had the background knowledge somehow supplied to support the fine story that is being related! Grady Harp

Henry Fields The action takes place in France, year 1936... An anti-Communist Russian exile that was on the White Army has to do such juggling acts to survive in those dangerous times. Those who hate Eric Rohmer's works, his intellectual halo, his never ending dialogs will definitely hate "Triple Agent" as well. Yes, there are so much conversations, so many dissertations... and eventually you may lost the thread of the plot. I mean, this movie is not like "Summer tale", here you got stuff like spying and so, you have to know who's who, and that's pretty hard if the characters don't stop talking about anything. Maybe I'll have to watch it again so I get everything figured out.PS: I'd like to underline the work of wonderful Greek actress Katerina Didaskalu. She's fascinating, and I hadn't have the occasion of watching her in a movie before.My rate: 6.5/10