The greatest spy novels are often penned by spies (John le Carre, Graham Greene, Ian Fleming, Joe Weisberg etc). This is more than the adage that tells people to write what they know because in one way or the other the life of a spy and fiction writing are inseparable. The best spy novelists were undoubtedly good spies because they could create false but believable schemes and stories, convincing the enemy of a meticulously crafted deception, drawing on their imagination for the use of subterfuge.
Netflix’s latest film “Operation Mincemeat” grapples with this strange dichotomy at its peak. At any rate, the movie is about the title role spy operation developed by British intelligence during World War 2 with some romance thrown into it and done with excellent acting and beautiful production design as well as some intricate plotting. However, Operation Mincemeat is essentially an exploration of how fiction relates to war itself while unearthing who lies beneath an undercover operative.
This is clearly spelled out right from the beginning with Operation Mincemeat identifying as a meditation on storytelling itself and what lies beneath reality (and vice versa). “In any story there’s always that which can be seen and that which cannot be seen. Nowhere else is this truer than in war stories. There is the war we see, a contest of bomb and bullets,” begins the sparingly used but important voiceover narration. “But alongside this war another one rages – a battle fought in shades of grey through seduction, deceitfulness and dishonesty. They are sometimes real; they are never themselves and fiction from fact merge.”
It won’t ruin anything to say that these words spewed out (as they’re typed) by Ian Fleming who created agent 007 for many James Bond films before them all. In 1943 Fleming took part in actual Operation Mincemeat where he appears curiously, watching the cogs turning in the mind of an author. Fleming is not the only writer of fiction among spies, stenographers and secret agents that populate Operation Mincemeat. In fact, for most part of the movie, the lead characters are telling stories but this narrative will save thousands.
In one early scene of Operation Mincemeat, intelligence officer Ewen Montagu reads to his child from one of the great spy novels (and later Alfred Hitchcock movies) titled The 39 Steps which can be considered as a birthplace of modern espionage thrillers. At this time when Allied forces were planning to attack Sicily then heavily fortified by German military; Montagu was busy developing a deception operation with Charles Cholmondeley. As such, Montagu and his team aimed at creating an illusion that would make Nazi military to believe that instead of attacking through Sicily they were intending on Greece and Sardinia so as to draw Germans away from Sicily for safer landing ground during invasion proper.
Thus, a plan was put into place that relied as much on creative writing as it did on happenstance and espionage. This involved dumping the corpse of a military officer with classified intelligence in Spain’s neutral coastline and letting the Germans capture him; this information would show plans concerning an attack on Greece by Allied forces. However, all this was a ruse – nothing was genuine from the papers to the real British officer. Instead, what took place is that intelligence officers discovered a body that had drowned and then invented an intricate life story for him so he would seem like a genuine officer with accurate intelligence.
Mincemeat’s best parts are long scenes in which Montagu and Jean Leslie discuss spy fiction together (on both sides). They hang around pubs in England during world war II curfewed nights just brainstorming who this invented soldier of theirs was – his family, mission, even whom he fell for.
This romance that occurs between them is when they combine their knowledge about spying and spy fiction to form this narrative, sometimes almost seeming flirtations since they see themselves as these characters’ co-creators. Mincemeat doesn’t go meta though it does stay fully scripted motion picture throughout but it is strange enough to have fictional characters who deeply care about other fictional people they created. It is a spy movie that loves spy stories.
Apart from being tidy, Operation Mincemeat isn’t anything special as far as movies go. Efficiently written by period drama specialist Michelle Ashford who wrote for The Pacific and worked on Masters of Sex, directed by John Madden who gives it his usual slickness but not very much else. His Exotic Marigold Hotel films or The Debt or Miss Sloane or Shakespeare in Love are all fine pictures but largely conservative in their filmmaking choices and often quite boring pieces of work; same old here.
These performances are great however; notably Kelly Macdonald’s demanding role as Leslie and Colin Firth’s as Montagu, which is impressive given the cloistered British setting. Matthew Macfayden is also very good as Charles, delivering wounded pride and barely concealed passion convincingly. I can’t wait to see him in the upcoming espionage miniseries playing John Stonehouse.
Operation Mincemeat appears highly polished with everything being visually stunning – the film actually seems larger than it is even though most of it takes place in tiny cramped rooms that you’d expect from a typical small budget British war movie. This story is one of those instances of truth being stranger than fiction in military and intelligence history like Argo where no one would believe it if not for the fact that it really happened.
It itself indicates a bit of what Operation Mincemeat is all about, that fiction is absolutely crucial. It means more than mere personal survival and prosperity in a painful world but also military victory and history. They say life imitates art but it’s more like a mutual relationship with art as life imitates art just as life itself is an imitation of art, while reality depends on imagination same as fiction does. That’s what makes Operation Mincemeat great, and people might appreciate the fiction (such as James Bond) that they consume so often even more. Netflix has now made Operation Mincemeat available through streaming.
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