On a cold winter's day, three murdered corpses are found in the snow in a city park. The bodies have had their faces and fingertips sliced off in order to hinder identification. The police officer assigned to the case, however, proves to be a tireless investigator, and eventually succeeds in establishing the identity of the victims. His investigations lead him to suspect that the murders are linked to a corrupt businessman who is being protected by powerful vested interests among the Establishment.
That could be the plot of a Humphrey Bogart-style film noir, and "Gorky Park" can be seen as an example of neo-noir, the movie genre which uses modern cinema techniques in order to produce a contemporary equivalent of the classic noirs of the forties and fifties. (Other neo-noirs from the eighties include "Body Heat", which also starred William Hurt, and "No Mercy"). The difference here, of course, is that the city in question is not New York or Los Angeles, New Orleans or Miami, but Moscow. The police investigator is Arkady Renko of the Soviet militia, the park is the city's Gorky Park (hence the title) and the villain of the piece is Jack Osborne, an American fur importer with close ties to the Soviet Establishment.
In 1983, when the Cold War was still far from over, the idea of setting a crime thriller in the Soviet Union with a Russian hero and an American villain must have been a novel one, and one which might have disturbed some American patriots. Nevertheless, "Gorky Park" is far from being pro-Soviet. (Despite the suspicions of the likes of Joe McCarthy that Hollywood was awash with Communist sympathisers, there were very few American films during the Cold War era which attempted to make propaganda on behalf of Soviet Communism, Warren Beatty's "Reds" perhaps being an exception).
The film is set during the twilight years of the old Soviet Union, the brief interlude between the death of Leonid Brezhnev (an event referred to in the script) and the rise of the liberal, reforming Mikhail Gorbachev. The country we see here is still an oppressive dictatorship, but Russia of Andropov and Chernenko is a very different place from the Russia of Lenin and Stalin. The predominant atmosphere is no longer one of revolutionary fanaticism but rather one of cynicism and corruption. By the early eighties Soviet Communism had evolved into what George Orwell described in "1984" as "oligarchical collectivism", a strongly hierarchical system where those at the top of the pecking order use their position to secure privileges and material advantages for themselves. Senior officials in the KGB, the body supposedly charged with defending the purity of communist ideology, are happy to make a profit out of doing business with a ruthless foreign capitalist.
Given the film's attitude towards the Soviet system, it was clearly not going to be possible to shoot it in Russia, so Helsinki stood in for Moscow, as it often did in Western films made during the Cold War. (The Finnish capital was a versatile performer and could also be called upon to play the role of Leningrad). This meant, of course, that well-known Moscow landmarks such as the Kremlin, Red Square or St Basil's Cathedral could not be shown, but director Michael Apted and cinematographer Ralf Bode were still able to invest the film with a cold, bleak atmosphere redolent of the Northern European winter, and serving as a metaphor for the bleak, soulless system under which Russians had to live at this period. (A distinctive, atmospheric visual look is a common feature of neo-noir films).
The dogged investigator is another common feature of both noir and neo-noir, and William Hurt's Arkady Renko falls within this tradition. Like a number of heroes played by Bogart and other leading noir actors such as Robert Mitchum and Glenn Ford, Renko is taciturn and outwardly stolid and unemotional, but inwardly he a man of strong feelings with a burning determination to see justice done, even when he knows that he will be putting himself at risk by continuing with his investigations. Hurt, who gives an excellent performance, was a good choice for the role, as he is often very good at playing men who find it difficult to express their feelings, showing us the genuine depths of feeling which lie below his character's surface reserve. ("The Accidental Tourist" is another example of this ability).
There were too many good supporting performances for me to single them all out, but special mentions must go to Joanna Pacula as Irina Asanova, Renko's love interest and a woman with connections with both the three murder victims and with Osborne, and Lee Marvin as the villainous Osborne himself. This was Pacula's first film in the West (she was exiled from her native Poland after Jaruzelski's military coup and the crackdown on the Solidarity movement) and I am always surprised that after this excellent start she did not go on to become a bigger Hollywood name. As one might expect from Dennis Potter, the screenplay is literate and intelligent. Like "Body Heat" and "No Mercy", this is one of the better crime dramas of the eighties. 7/10
That could be the plot of a Humphrey Bogart-style film noir, and "Gorky Park" can be seen as an example of neo-noir, the movie genre which uses modern cinema techniques in order to produce a contemporary equivalent of the classic noirs of the forties and fifties. (Other neo-noirs from the eighties include "Body Heat", which also starred William Hurt, and "No Mercy"). The difference here, of course, is that the city in question is not New York or Los Angeles, New Orleans or Miami, but Moscow. The police investigator is Arkady Renko of the Soviet militia, the park is the city's Gorky Park (hence the title) and the villain of the piece is Jack Osborne, an American fur importer with close ties to the Soviet Establishment.
In 1983, when the Cold War was still far from over, the idea of setting a crime thriller in the Soviet Union with a Russian hero and an American villain must have been a novel one, and one which might have disturbed some American patriots. Nevertheless, "Gorky Park" is far from being pro-Soviet. (Despite the suspicions of the likes of Joe McCarthy that Hollywood was awash with Communist sympathisers, there were very few American films during the Cold War era which attempted to make propaganda on behalf of Soviet Communism, Warren Beatty's "Reds" perhaps being an exception).
The film is set during the twilight years of the old Soviet Union, the brief interlude between the death of Leonid Brezhnev (an event referred to in the script) and the rise of the liberal, reforming Mikhail Gorbachev. The country we see here is still an oppressive dictatorship, but Russia of Andropov and Chernenko is a very different place from the Russia of Lenin and Stalin. The predominant atmosphere is no longer one of revolutionary fanaticism but rather one of cynicism and corruption. By the early eighties Soviet Communism had evolved into what George Orwell described in "1984" as "oligarchical collectivism", a strongly hierarchical system where those at the top of the pecking order use their position to secure privileges and material advantages for themselves. Senior officials in the KGB, the body supposedly charged with defending the purity of communist ideology, are happy to make a profit out of doing business with a ruthless foreign capitalist.
Given the film's attitude towards the Soviet system, it was clearly not going to be possible to shoot it in Russia, so Helsinki stood in for Moscow, as it often did in Western films made during the Cold War. (The Finnish capital was a versatile performer and could also be called upon to play the role of Leningrad). This meant, of course, that well-known Moscow landmarks such as the Kremlin, Red Square or St Basil's Cathedral could not be shown, but director Michael Apted and cinematographer Ralf Bode were still able to invest the film with a cold, bleak atmosphere redolent of the Northern European winter, and serving as a metaphor for the bleak, soulless system under which Russians had to live at this period. (A distinctive, atmospheric visual look is a common feature of neo-noir films).
The dogged investigator is another common feature of both noir and neo-noir, and William Hurt's Arkady Renko falls within this tradition. Like a number of heroes played by Bogart and other leading noir actors such as Robert Mitchum and Glenn Ford, Renko is taciturn and outwardly stolid and unemotional, but inwardly he a man of strong feelings with a burning determination to see justice done, even when he knows that he will be putting himself at risk by continuing with his investigations. Hurt, who gives an excellent performance, was a good choice for the role, as he is often very good at playing men who find it difficult to express their feelings, showing us the genuine depths of feeling which lie below his character's surface reserve. ("The Accidental Tourist" is another example of this ability).
There were too many good supporting performances for me to single them all out, but special mentions must go to Joanna Pacula as Irina Asanova, Renko's love interest and a woman with connections with both the three murder victims and with Osborne, and Lee Marvin as the villainous Osborne himself. This was Pacula's first film in the West (she was exiled from her native Poland after Jaruzelski's military coup and the crackdown on the Solidarity movement) and I am always surprised that after this excellent start she did not go on to become a bigger Hollywood name. As one might expect from Dennis Potter, the screenplay is literate and intelligent. Like "Body Heat" and "No Mercy", this is one of the better crime dramas of the eighties. 7/10