Scars
Andy Osnard (Pierce Brosnan) is a British spy who has
recently screwed up (actually, he has been discovered
having an affair with a diplomat's wife) and been
dispatched to Panama, an assignment that on its face,
looks like it will be dull and dreggy. So begins The Tailor of Panama, an international spy movie with a
little more on its mind than the usual Bondian gizmos
and girls -- yes, please note the cute nod, in
Brosnan's casting as a chic and arrogant operative, to
his most famous role, and it's not Remington Steele.
Andy's disappointment with his new assignment leads
him to seek out ways to stir things up. And so,
immediately on his arrival, he seeks out the colorful
characters. Among these, the most gossipy is Henry
(Geoffrey Rush), a self-exiled British tailor who
spends much of his time hobnobbing with the tiny
nation's wealthy denizens, drunks, and assorted
official has-beens. On meeting Andy, Henry describes
the local scene to him as "Casablanca without
heroes." Indeed, between the divey bars and the
brothels (where Henry and Andy spend some awkward
minutes on a magic-fingers bed, discussing business
and looking very silly), the place is both depressed
and depressing. Henry, you soon learn, has his own
reasons for being stuck there, namely, a seamy past
that he's keeping from his wife Louisa (Jamie Lee
Curtis) and their two kids. Though he does all right
as a tailor and gossip, he's also incurred some debts
that are making his present life, a bit, ah, tight.
In other words, Henry's in need of cash, and if some
low-stakes adventure comes with it, that's fine with
him too. The trouble comes in the size of the stakes.
When Andy hints that the British government will pay
for information concerning the status of the Canal
(recently turned over to Panama by the United States),
Henry can't resist. He begins spinning increasingly
elaborate spy-like stories about people he knows,
including the manager of his tailor shop, the
mysterious and badly scarred Marta (Leonor Varela);
the town drunk Mickie Abraxas (Brendan Gleeson, yet
again terrific); and Louisa, who happens to work for
the office overseeing the Canal.
It's obviously a bad idea, but once he starts, Henry
can't stop -- the stories become more and more
tangled, even as he conjures up his own
conscience-figure, a deceased mentor, Uncle Benny
(Harold Pinter), who pops up periodically in the tight
space of the fitting room to offer Henry advice and
admonitions. Meanwhile, Andy develops his own
investment in the stories -- to the point that it
hardly matters whether they're real or not. Andy sees
the exchanges of "information" and money as a means to
salvage his own sagging career, or at least break up
the tedium and get back at the suits who banished him.
As a bonus, he's also improving his sex life: enticed
by the fact that he's working on something "big," his
British office coworker, Francesa (Catherine
McCormack), agrees to a series of secret, sweaty,
unsentimental trysts. Almost incidental to everything
else that goes on here, these scenes become almost
mechanical -- this is what good-looking, affluent
white folks in spy movies do when they're bored.
The film is full of twists and turns, blackmails and
betrayals, all leading the two men deeper and deeper
into a fictional hole from which they will be unable
to extricate themselves. Based on John LeCarre's novel
and produced, directed, and co-written by John Boorman
(his co-writers are LeCarre and Andrew Davies), The Tailor of Panama is often darkly witty, in its focus
on the white "imperialists"' perpetual misapprehension
of the local culture and the individuals who actually
have lives apart from those outsiders who think
themselves "superior," at the very least in their
tastes in fashion and liquor.
The once-robust Mickey is one example of the
consequences of such misjudgment. Broken and sad, he
lumbers about, occasionally erupting in drunken fits,
naming names and pointing fingers, only to be carted
off to bed by Henry, the ultimate smoother-over. But
if Mickey's a tragic figure, he's also a blustering,
somewhat ridiculous one, a man who feels impotent,
he's resorted to self-destruction. The quietly
watchful Marta may be the more perfect embodiment of
how things can go wrong in neo-colonialist states.
Surrounded by men who can't help but stare at her
damaged face and wonder how she came to be that way,
Marta remains a tantalizing enigma. Some of her former
compatriots (including Mickey and Henry), remember her
as she once was -- a flawless beauty ruined during a
brief rebellion against the occupying forces. None of
the men can see her in any way beyond his own
fantasies and needs. Even Henry, who has memories of
the terrible event that scarred one half of her face,
understands her only in terms of his own
self-perceived tragedy. He's so locked inside his own
experience that he can't act, can't be smart, and
can't be generous. And that, in The Tailor of Panama, is the ultimate sin.
