The Pigeon Tunnel [2023]

 A meeting between renowned American documentarian Errol Morris – his examination of the slippery nature of truth, by sifting through deceptive non-truths, has been a running theme in his filmography, and most famously touched upon in his canonized work The Thin Blue Line – and celebrated British spy novelist David Cornwell – who, through his best-selling books pseudonymously written as John le Carré, had repeatedly delved into the subversion and obfuscation of truth – was, on paper, a match made in heaven. Furthermore, Cornwell sat for this rare interview just prior to his death on Morris’ behest, thus enabling this momentous rendezvous. However, for anyone who’s read le Carré’s enticing and engrossing memoir The Pigeon Tunnel, there was unfortunately nothing new in this partial transliteration of that marvellous volume. While the book, through droll irony, had audaciously cut across through myriad fascinating anecdotes from the writer’s eventful life, Morris probed predominantly into one specific aspect only, viz. Cornwell’s complex relationship with his father Ronnie – a compulsive career conman who was perennially on the run – which remained the great unresolved equation in his life. While that served as terrific material, made all the more arresting by his sardonic and surprisingly candid articulation of that difficult chapter from his life, Morris kept stopping short of provoking new memories and revelations beyond what Cornwell had already let loose in his memoir. While, in a captivating stylistic choice, the author’s responses were juxtaposed with footage from four highly reckoned adaptations (Martin Ritt’s haunting The Spy Who Came in from the Cold, and the three acclaimed BBC miniseries Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, Smiley’s People and A Perfect Spy), dramatizations and overemphasis of the title’s meaning, however, felt tepid.

Director: Errol Morris

Genre: Documentary/Biopic

Language: English

Country: UK