FATHER FRANK’S RANTS Rant Number 654 2 November 15 OO7 AGAINST PUTIN

JAMES BOND IN 'SPECTRE' TAKES ON HIS LATEST ENEMY: RUSSIAN PRESIDENT VLADIMIR PUTIN.


Does the Russian President appear in Bond’s latest movie caper, SPECTRE? Barely disguised as Herr Oberhauser, a.k.a. Blofeld, 007’s eternal arch-enemy? Implausible – actor Christoph Waltz is no Putin lookalike – yet…there would be logic in that.

All of Bond’s bad guys are non-British. Bloody foreigners. Dr No is Eurasian; Mr Big – ‘Live and Let Die’ - is black; Goldfinger probably a Balt, with Jewish blood to boot; Emilio Largo – ‘Thunderball’ – Italian; Red Grant – ‘From Russia With Love’ – Irish; Le Chiffre – ‘Casino Royale’ – French; Hugo Drax – ‘Moonraker’ – German; the ubiquitous Blofeld  - e.g. ‘Diamonds are Forever’ - Greek-Polish; Scaramanga – ‘The Man with the Golden Gun’ - a Latino... get it? A gallery, no, an apotheosis of xenophobia.

Would it not make sense then if behind Blofeld’s latest incarnation lay Britain’s favourite foreign ogre, Russia's President Putin? A former KGB boss. 007, remember, often battled with Soviet counter-intelligence, the murderous SMERSH. Acronym meaning ‘death to spies’. Suitable to recall in a film that opens in a fab scene showing the Mexican Day of the Dead in all its macabre charm. Thus, Putin is the obvious avatar of that old, recurrent bogey – Britain’s perfidious rival and lethal foe: Philip II, Napoleon, Adolf, now Putin. It figures, no?

True, Spectre seeks to mitigate the cliché. Alongside German-accented Oberhauser is a British villain, the very chief of MI6, no less. He too works for Blofeld. Not implausible. Kim Philby, Burgess, Mclean, do you remember that jolly lot? All Communists recruited in Cambridge by the Soviets. Achieved top posts in British intelligence. For years they spied for the great proletarian fatherland, till defecting to Moscow. Without any 007 doing a sausage to stop them. So Spectre is verisimilar in this.

The old Bond got lambasted because of his alleged misogyny. (But how could a man who regularly beds gorgeous women be a woman-hater?) This movie adjusts the record somewhat. Moneypenny is no plodding secretary but a dynamic, modern female. Shown in bed with a bloke. Oh, yes, she is black. Or mixed-race, if you prefer. Fair enough. So is much of today’s Britain, is it not?

The real Bond girl is Madeleine Swann. A French bird. With a doctorate, just to make the point she is no dumb blonde but an intelligent professional. Problem is, she is pretty but hardly stunning. Would do nicely as a shop assistant in Boots but…as a Bond flame? OK, Daniel Craig is pushing 50. Maybe deemed too long in the tooth to seduce fantastic babes. Don’t care. I still desire 007 to persist in his rakehell, womanising role. With beautiful, Ursula Andress Scandinavian types. Until he finds God and enters a monastery.

Spectre is a stunning action movie. That car chase across Rome, huh! Hence hardly boring. Never mind the absurd fights fought by 007. Enough to put the strongest man in hospital for months. Yet Bond cheerfully picks himself up and proceeds to have hot sex with his squeeze. Ye gods!

Where it goes wrong is in trying to be psychological. Because Blofeld/Oberhauser turns out to be the son of the man who cared for the child-orphan Bond. Making the two boys sort of half-brothers. Sibling rivalry? Or shades of Cain and Abel, as the bad brov delights in torturing Bond with a nasty mechanical needle? I wonder whether it is because of this bizarre childhood connection that Bond in the end, unlike in previous films, does not terminate the recumbent, wounded villain. Instead, he is arrested by M ‘in Her Majesty’s name’. Rather too edifying, methinks.

007’s creator, Ian Fleming, was a naval intelligence officer with little experience of active duty. An armchair spy, that is. (Was Bond Fleming’s wish fulfilment? Quite likely.) After the 1956 Sues debacle, he mournfully contemplated the end of the British Empire. It was the right time for a cool superhero, an invulnerable licensed killer, to ride to the rescue. So, as England’s influence in world affairs waned, the 007 cult spread. The public, depressed by the revelations of dismal failure by his secret services to detect real Russian spies, could revel in fictional consolation. Bond might be flawed, suffer setbacks, even be captured and hurt but, like a Canadian mountie, in the end he always got his man. In Goldfinger, before savagely strangling his dastardly enemy he warns him: ‘Never go a bear of England’!

Will Bond take on an Islamist baddie next? That’s tricky. Jihadis inhabit parts of the world where someone blond and with a pale skin would stick out like a sore thumb. Besides, there might be diplomatic complications, let alone bad ‘community relations’. That seems more of a job for Q. The MI6 computer whiz kid played by the young Ben Whishaw. (I was shocked to discover in real life he is a shirt-lifter. No one is perfect…) He could track down any terrorist by clicking on his gadgets. Drones would do the rest. What do you need a 007 for?

Back to the beginning. A Russian girl I chatted to in Kensington denied Waltz the actor bears any actual resemblance to the Russian leader. But I have revisited clips online and I am not so sure.

Besides, the point is that Putin fits the part. He is menacing – so Western media keep blathering. He is aggressive. He doesn’t like gays…Above all, he is a foreigner.

That settles it. It’s got to be him!

Revd Frank Julian Gelli

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