Black Bag

It feels like authentic British humor, and it was made by an American director and screenwriter. It's quite surprising to think that the editor of Jurassic Park and the director of Ocean's Eleven were both very similar.

Let me tell you some interesting details, including spoilers:

At the beginning, when the male protagonist went to find the informant, the informant was hugged by many women and said that he just cheated accidentally. The male protagonist persuaded him to go home, and the informant actually went back. In the next scene where the informant was about to die, the informant was at home discussing going out with his wife on the weekend to ease the relationship

When the male lead pretended to lose his work badge and went to find the female lead, the female lead's boss was shown in the meeting room for the first time. The old Bond showed his sovereignty by switching the glass.

When the male protagonist said goodbye to the female protagonist on the night of the trip abroad, he first spoke French and then German, because both languages are used in Switzerland. The female protagonist frowned slightly after hearing this, which also showed that she seemed to realize that the male protagonist was checking her out.

In the meeting after the vulnerability incident, Uncle Fa delicately showed the panic beneath his calm surface. If you look closely, his hands were shaking when pouring water, and his reaction after leaving the meeting room was also panic.

The first time the male protagonist went to the river to sort out the situation, he didn't catch anything, and he had no clue. The second time he went with the black agent, he caught a small fish, which corresponds to the black guy. The big boss was not caught, but he was eating a still-living fish, implying that he was the big fish and could survive the best.

The body language of the big devil leaning forward to press the elevator button with old Bond in the elevator is so powerful, it instantly expresses the meaning of dominance

Story summary:

Severus, a key worm device of the British Cyber Security Center, disappeared. Agent George was commissioned by his colleagues to investigate the traitor. He suspected his wife Catherine but did not make it public. In order to find out the truth, George and Catherine invited four colleagues and their spouses to a dinner at home, trying to expose them. At the dinner, George drugged and tricked them into revealing Freddy's affair, but only found out that Freddy was having an affair. Catherine's evasive attitude during the conversation deepened George's suspicion. He asked Clarissa to help monitor Catherine, and the story unfolded.

Overseas film reviews:

Cate Blanchett and Michael Fassbender's acting is superb. Blanchett's role as Catherine is full of sensuality, mystery and inner conflict. In the therapeutic conversation scene with Zoe, she shows Catherine's vigilance and inner uneasiness through subtle changes in expression and tone. Fassbender's role as George perfectly interprets the coldness and mechanical sense of the character. When he finds curry sauce splashed on his shirt, his indifferent reaction and tone vividly show George's personality characteristics. Pierce Brosnan plays Arthur Steiglitz, the head of the NCSC. Although he has a small role, he shows the coldness and majesty of the character very well through his superb acting skills.

On the surface, the film revolves around the missing network worm device "Severus", telling the story of agents uncovering traitors within the intelligence agency. But behind the scenes, it explores eternal topics such as trust, loyalty and betrayal, especially focusing on the complex relationship between George and Catherine, a couple of agents, interweaving the trust crisis in marriage with the test of loyalty in spy warfare.

In terms of narrative style, the film adopts a multi-line narrative method, cleverly interweaving multiple clues such as the conversation at the dinner party, George's investigation, and the complex relationships between the characters. This narrative method increases the complexity and interest of the story, allowing the audience to remain curious during the viewing process and try to piece together the complete truth.

In terms of art and visual presentation, Soderbergh showed his usual high standards. He served as the director of photography under the pseudonym Peter Andrews and created a very textured picture for the film. The use of a large number of tracking shots and lens flares not only enhances the visual impact of the picture, but also creates a tense and mysterious atmosphere. In some scenes, such as the clip where George takes a lie detector test, the audience seems to be in the suspenseful world of espionage through clever lens switching and light and shadow processing. The color tone of the film is also very cleverly matched, and the overall color tone is cold, which fits the atmosphere of a spy film. The jazz-style soundtrack composed by David Holmes has a brisk rhythm and cooperates well with the picture, creating a tense and charming atmosphere for the film.

For viewers who like suspenseful spy war themes and pay more attention to character relationships and emotional portrayals, "Black Bag Operation" is a good choice. The complex character relationships and delicate emotional descriptions in the film can satisfy their pursuit of the depth of the story. At the same time, viewers who like to appreciate the superb acting skills of the actors can also be satisfied in this movie. The wonderful performances of many powerful actors are definitely worth watching. But for those who pursue fast-paced and exciting spy war films, or those who have high requirements for the logic and plot innovation of the film, this movie may not meet their needs.

"Black Bag" looks like another Mr. and Mrs. Smith action movie, but it ends with the bad guys being eliminated and innocent people not being injured or killed. The wife follows the husband's lead, squeezing out the big boss and taking over the pension fund. It's more than killing three birds with one stone. A closer look is still a film that is refreshing to the end. In summary, all the characters in the film are "bastards". The director thinks that this "loving couple" can survive to the end, and that's it. Unfortunately, this model is no longer fresh. Take some classic themes and let AI remove the martial arts, and give the instruction "hi my AI brother, give me this template and this structure, write a 1,000-word short story, thank you all!" This may be the output. It is undeniable that it is not a particularly mediocre movie, but the audience is aesthetically fatigued. It's just another quarterly composition of a lazy director.

I went to the cinema to watch this movie twice. The first time I didn't borrow a subtitle machine, but the second time I used one. Fassbender and the Big Devil in this movie are so sexy! Sexy sexy! And they have a perfect CP feeling. Before watching this movie, I really couldn't imagine that Fassbender and the Big Devil could have a CP feeling. I originally hoped that the Big Devil could be replaced by Yimei.

The love between the Big Devil and Fassbender in the film is a sister-dog love. The Big Devil is stronger than Fassbender.

At the beginning of the movie, on Sunday, George, a spy engaged in national security construction played by Fassbender, went to the bar to meet a bald man. The bald man said to him: "We have a traitor. This note lists the names of suspects, and your wife Kathryn is also in it." Fassbender's eyes suddenly became uneasy when he heard that the big devil was also in it. This traitor stole something called Severus and wanted to sell it to the Russians. We must find this person quickly, otherwise the damage to the world will be unimaginable. The bald man said that in fact, Fassbender and the big devil are a couple that everyone envied in the agency, and few spies can be so loyal to their marriage. Fassbender said, bald man, you are still hanging out in the bar so late, don't you care about your wife? From this, we can see why Fassbender and the big devil's marriage is so strong. This line shows that Fassbender's character has a firm belief in marriage. In the end, the two separated.

Then the scene shifted to Monday. On Monday night, Fassbender invited all the suspects on his list to his home, and he even cooked for them. The guests included a young technical girl, her husband, a cheating man, a psychologist in the agency, and the psychologist's boyfriend, a muscular man.

The four of them came to Fassbender and the Devil's house. The cheating man told Fassbender that he thought Fassbender would promote him to be Fassbender's subordinate, but Fassbender promoted the muscle man. At this time, Fassbender's white shirt was stained with a little sauce. He said some polite words to the cheating man, and then he went upstairs to change his clothes and changed into a black sweater. What a dom! And Fassbender put some drugs in the food, similar to stimulants, which can expand people's emotions.

Dinner started. Perhaps to get revenge on Fassbender for not promoting him, the cheating man told Fassbender what he had done before: recording the bad things his father did and playing the videos at family gatherings. Fassbender said he didn't like liars. I guess his father was unfaithful to the family. The psychologist on the side said, "How old were you at that time? This incident must have been a huge psychological trauma for you!" Fassbender said, "I was 37 at that time." ... When the psychologist said this, he probably thought that Fassbender must have experienced his father's infidelity at a very young age, so he took revenge on his father. As a result, the facts were completely different from what the psychologist thought.

Everyone who heard the story found it incredible. At this time, the technical girl asked Fassbender: "How will you play me?" Fassbender did not answer. The technical girl realized that the question she asked was inappropriate, so she apologized. However, the technical girl was teasing Fassbender throughout the movie, hitting on Fassbender, and she seemed to have always hoped that Fassbender and herself would have something.

Fassbender said, let's play a game, each of us say a New Year's wish for the person on our right. The game got a bit dramatic when it came to the technical girl, because the person on the right of the technical girl was the cheating man. Once again, the technical girl is the cheating man's partner. The belief and wish given by the technical girl is: never meet her again. She is the mistress, so I call her the cheating man in the article. The cheating man did not admit it and said that the technical girl was immature. As a result, as if to retaliate against the cheating man, Fassbender said: "You and the mistress meet at the hotel every Sunday afternoon during the department meeting." The technical girl was very angry when she heard this, and stabbed the cheating man's hand with the knife on the dining table.

Dinner is over.

When Fassbender was cleaning the house, he found a movie ticket in the trash can. The name of the movie was Black Widows. It felt like a horror movie, but I wondered if it had anything to do with Marvel... This movie ticket made Fassbender suspicious, because they could exchange information while watching a movie (I guess).

Tsk tsk tsk. Fassbender's character is really... a loyal dog that Kathryn (the big devil's character) found somewhere, who can cook, clean the house, won't lie to her, and will even kill for her.

The next morning, which was Tuesday morning, Fassbender said that there was a good movie called Black Widows. The Big Devil said, I haven't heard of this movie, you can go and see it. I have a business trip on Wednesday, let's go and see it today. Fassbender asked the Big Devil where he was going on a business trip. The Big Devil replied, "Black Bag." The meaning of Black Bag in this movie is no comment, because of work reasons, no comment, after all, he is an agent. Then when the Big Devil was not paying attention, Fassbender put his door card in the Big Devil's bag. When he arrived at the company, the cheating man told Fassbender: The bald colleague died... the bald man who told Fassbender that there was a ghost.

Fassbender found the Big Devil in a meeting. The leader of the meeting was the previous version of 007, played by Pierce Brosnan. This movie has a strong relationship with 007. Fassbender also auditioned for 007 before. The Big Devil walked out the door and gave the access card to Fassbender. Then Fassbender sneaked into the Big Devil's office (I forgot why Fassbender could sneak into the Big Devil's office at this point) and saw the Big Devil's calendar - she was going on a business trip to Zurich on Wednesday. Fassbender wrote down the coordinates of the address where the Big Devil was going.

For the rest of Tuesday, the big devil went to the psychiatrist for mandatory psychotherapy. All employees here have to do it. Then the two began to test each other. The big devil asked: Why are you dating a muscle man? He is lower than you. The psychiatrist said... I forgot what she said, but this conversation emphasized one point: the psychiatrist is a religious person - Catholic. The psychiatrist's belief in Catholicism is very firm.

Fassbender went fishing but didn't catch any fish. His subordinate Muscle Man came. Muscle Man said he found out that the Big Devil had booked a flight to Zurich under an alias. At the same time, there was a lot of money in the account under the alias in a bank in Zurich. It sounds like the Big Devil stole Severus and sold it to Russia, and then the Big Devil got the money.

At night, the two went to see the movie Black Widows. When it came to the jump scare, the big devil looked disdainful, as if she had seen such a jump scare before, but the next second there was another jump scare, which the big devil did not expect, and she was amused. Fassbender observed the big devil's reaction.

Then the two went home to eat, and then the big devil went to the airport. After the big devil left, Fassbender found the technical girl and said to her: I need you to help me get some information tomorrow. The technical girl said, why should I agree to you? Fassbender said: "In fact, it's not just your husband who cheated, you also cheated. Your husband is at least more traditional and only cheated on one woman, but you are a group sex..." The technical girl lost control of her emotions during the conversation, saying that she couldn't find someone outside the agency when working in such a place, but because of the nature of her job, she had to lie even to her partner, and kept saying black bag and hearing black bag, "If I can lie to everyone, how can I trust anyone"... And, how can a marriage like the technical girl and the cheating man work?

On Wednesday morning, Fassbender found the technical girl and asked her to stop monitoring. Then Fassbender gave the technical girl the coordinates. The big devil appeared on the screen, and the technical girl suddenly realized. Fassbender said: "You asked me last night how marriages in this kind of institution work. In fact, there is only one way: unconditionally defend each other. Once your partner gets into any trouble, get him out at all costs!" The technical girl couldn't help but praise: "Woohoo! So hot!" In order to hear what the big devil was saying, the technical girl used a plug-in, and then the conversation showed that the money transferred to Zurich was used to buy something for the big devil. She was a buyer, not a seller.

However, an accident happened. When the technical girl was helping Fassbender, the surveillance was stagnant, and the surveillance missed that the Russians had taken Severus away. Fassbender was very panicked after hearing the news, and then Fassbender, the cheating man, and the muscle man were called to a meeting with 007. Fassbender weakly asked whether to notify the CIA, and 007 said no, he didn't like outsiders interfering.

After the meeting, the technical girl found her cheating husband and told him that Fassbender had asked her to stop the surveillance. That night, the big devil went home. The cheating husband found the big devil and told him about the incident, hoping that the big devil would help his wife. It can be seen that although the cheating husband cheated, he was responsible and affectionate to his wife. He did his best to help his wife out of trouble.

The big devil returned home and lay next to Fassbender. Fassbender said that he was set up, and the big devil felt the same way. The big devil said: "They just want to see me come to save you, and I will definitely come to save you." Oh, I was moved by the determination of this couple to defend their marriage! Marriage in this era is particularly unpopular. From time to time, you can see a post on Douban suggesting that women should not get married, and there are several posts on Zhihu discussing why men don't want to get married now. There are countless anti-marriage and anti-childbirth movies in Hollywood in recent years, including but not limited to "Marriage Story" and "Challenger". As a result, Soderbergh is really traditional, and he is not influenced by the current cultural trend. In this movie, he firmly expressed the core of supporting marriage: the two must have a firm belief to protect the marriage, and if one party is in trouble, the other party must do his best to pick the other party out, so that the marriage can work.

On Thursday, the Big Devil started to act. She met with the technical girl and asked her to help her again. The technical girl was desperate. But she still helped. After the Big Devil met with the Russian in Zurich, the Russian should have gone to meet the person holding Severus. So the Big Devil asked the technical girl to find the coordinates of the Russian. After the Big Devil got the coordinates, the Big Devil met a white man and gave him information. The white man was a CIA person. Then the CIA blew up the Russian holding Severus and solved the problem. The Big Devil told 007, who was eating sashimi, about this.

Meanwhile, the shrink and the muscleman break up.

Finally, Fassbender gave the cheating man, the muscle man, the technical girl, and the psychologist a lie detector test. From the lie detector test, we can see that the character of the technical girl is not as reckless as she appears. Her middle name is Beatrice. Fassbender asked the technical girl twice if her middle name is Beatrice. The technical girl said no, and the electrocardiogram did not fluctuate at all. On the contrary, the cheating man, the husband of the technical girl, had an abnormal heartbeat when he lied. The last question Fassbender asked the technical girl was: "When did you hear about Severus?" The technical girl asked: "What Severus?" The character of the technical girl is very good. On the one hand, she is very innocent, and on the other hand, she lies without mercy, and she can definitely deceive others when she lies because she looks innocent enough. But on the other hand, although she is very good at lying, she will not do very bad things. She will not do things like stealing things and selling them to Russians.

The next day, Fassbender and the Big Devil called the four people to their home. Fassbender first revealed that the cheating man's cheating partner was a psychiatrist. Also, the technical girl was actually the most advanced manipulative person, but she had nothing to do with the insider and the whole thing with Severus. The insider was actually a muscle man, who stole Severus at the instruction of 007 and then sold him. He told the whole thing to the psychiatrist. What the muscle man was going to do was contrary to the psychiatrist's religious beliefs, so the psychiatrist and the muscle man broke up. In the end, the muscle man was killed and his body sank to the bottom of the lake.

Although this movie is a spy story, it is actually about marriage, and it is monogamy. I remember watching "Challenger" in the cinema at this time last year. "Challenger" happened to be about a polygamy marriage between three people.

Written by David Koepp, the screenwriter of Presence (2024), Black Bag began filming just two months after the previous film was completed. At first glance, this film, with an all-star cast and designed to be entertaining, seems like a commercial compromise, which is in opposition to Soderbergh's previous film's more formal exploration of the potential of camera and digital technology. The pursuit of smooth and simple style in Presence now gives way to stilted editing, suspenseful plots and an Agatha Christie-like revelation. But although Black Bag takes place in a faceless office and a monotonous upscale residential area, this spy movie gradually reveals its frenetic playfulness (frénésie ludique). This law is almost parodied in the first dialogue (and the first continuous shot) of the whole film: after wandering around a nightclub in London to find his informant, George Woodhouse (Michael Fassbender) learned the unbelievable truth: "There is a mole in your team, and your wife is one of the suspects." At the following Sunday dinner, George injected truth serum into the stew and asked the suspects present to play a variant of the "Truth or Dare" game, hoping that they would accidentally reveal key information. The preference for and exposure of boudoir secrets makes Black Bag stylistically closer to the cold analytical style that Soderbergh has established since Sex, Lies, and Videotape (1989), and Girlfriend Experience (2009) marks the pinnacle of this style: the stiffness and mechanical feeling of the body, the dim light in the exposed private space, the characters' actions hovering between chaos and experience, the obsession with surface and the hostility to all depth. Soderbergh officially uses this aesthetic to reveal the inherent interests of sex trade in the market economy.

At first glance, George's self-proclaimed search for the truth seems like a yearning for a humanity that turns its back on the twenty-first century and accepts the proper emotional expression. From careless gaffes to hilarious panics, the situation spirals out of control, but strangely, this does not shake the way George and Catherine think about and organize their relationship. From the beginning to the end of the film, the balance of power in their relationship changes, but marriage remains like a tightly controlled secret service, a self-enclosed mirror machine (une machine spéculaire). This shift from seriousness to farce is more a difference in speed than a human reaction and character transformation. The more Soderbergh adheres to the conventions of the narrative MacGuffin (here, "millions of people will die" due to the theft of Severus's software), the more he speeds up and the more he can point to its empty nature, looking for an expansion, a moment of explosion that can mobilize these one-dimensional characters. Between the announcement and the solution of the mystery, a speck of ketchup on the sleeve of a white shirt becomes a spatter of blood on the wall. Can we really find something different from almost nothing? Black Bag abandons the conceptual pretense of Induction, but it also revolves around an essential incoherence. When George repeatedly emphasizes that he "hates lies", he is not stating a moral situation but an aesthetic pursuit, from which we can see what Soderbergh hopes to achieve in The Informant! (2009): he seeks a transparency that is not constructed through desire or intervention, but simply through the withdrawal and acceptance in the vacuum state (le vide barométrique) brought about by the mise-en-scène.