[Editor’s note: The following review contains spoilers for “The Sympathizer,” Episode 7, “Endings Are Hard, Aren’t They?”]
Contradictions are sometimes unsatisfying, however contradictions can be the one option to reconcile onerous truths. As an example, it’s not very satisfying in charge your group’s heartbreaking loss on the referees, however there’s honesty in accepting that, over the course of a recreation, 50 foul calls will inevitably support one group greater than one other. Ultimately, you select to honor the established guidelines or dwell in denial of the ultimate field rating; to simply accept the end result or descend into insanity; to go alongside or throw a match. Neither alternative is technically unsuitable, and thus each selections are technically proper. It’s all a matter of perspective.
“The Sympathizer” is all about perspective. Over seven time-shifting episodes, Park Chan-wook and Don McKellar’s HBO thriller bounces from one framework to the following with discombobulating regularity — a ping-pong impact enhanced by the built-in duality of our lead, identified merely as The Captain (and performed with an impressive, slowly maturing mix of unconcious obedience and instinctual insurrection by Hoa Xuande). He’s a double agent, pretending to work for the Southern Vietnamese military whereas formally working on behalf of the Northern Vietnamese communists. He’s additionally half-French, half-Vietnamese (a organic cut up), in addition to half-Vietnamese, half-American (a cultural cut up introduced on by his formative expertise learning overseas). Duplicity is a part of his job, nevertheless it’s additionally a part of his still-developing id. And whereas the previous is his solely option to keep alive, the latter isn’t any option to dwell.
The Captain is pulled each which approach, as long as every approach is reverse the opposite. By magnifying these contradictions, “The Sympathizer” asks us to get snug dwelling with dichotomies. Seeing either side and acknowledging their flaws — and attributes — is the purpose. Life just isn’t so simple as selecting the best path. Roads have many forks, with many turns, all chosen for various causes by completely different folks.
However “The Sympathizer” remains to be the Captain’s story. The present asks us to acknowledge how contradictions can coexist on this planet, nevertheless it’s additionally a private odyssey, the place our protagonist has to reconcile his personal contradictions if he hopes to seek out peace. He should settle for that ideologies can information him, however they will’t defend him; that something dictating how he lives his life is insignificant in comparison with the human requirements he can’t refute.
It’s not till his previous self is actually blown to smithereens (within the detonation on the film set that ends Episode 4) when the Captain instinctively grasps as a lot. His mind takes a bit longer to catch up, however by Episode 7, he’s lastly performing of his personal accord, following a plan of his personal design. The place as soon as there was a blind man following the social gathering line, there’s now a person who can see simply sufficient to determine which course is finest. Slightly than serving the Normal (Toan Le) by remaining Stateside as his deputy, or serving his communist allies by persevering with to spy on the Normal in America, the Captain forces his approach into the mission with a view to defend his good friend, Bôn (Fred Nguyen Khan). To be clear, nobody desires this however the Captain. Everybody, together with Bôn, prefers he keep behind, however the Captain can’t let his ideological allegiances intervene along with his impartial wants — not anymore.
With a view to undergo with it, he nonetheless must consider he’s serving the trigger, so he convinces himself he’s going alongside not simply to avoid wasting Bôn, however to show himself over to his handlers. The battle is over. His mission is full. Definitely, he’s earned a reprieve. However after he manages to get captured with out getting killed, he’s not rewarded like a returning hero, however tossed in a reeducation camp, the place he’s pressured to spend a yr writing confession after confession. These accounts of his time as a spy create the sequence’ narrative, which — by design — creates additional contradictions.
In spite of everything, the Captain is past an unreliable narrator. Initially, his confessions are solely given whereas he’s being tortured. He’s going to maintain sure occasions to himself, just because he desires to be let loose. However the Captain, as we see within the brutal electrocution scenes, can also be repressing elements of his story as a result of they’re too traumatic, too upsetting, too contradictory for him to simply accept. The Captain might imagine his communist captors (who he additionally sees as his comrades) need to hear that he’s loyal, so he frames his option to return to Vietnam by way of the Normal’s ill-fated mission for instance of his allegiance to the communist social gathering. Little does the Captain notice, the camp’s Commandant is aware of higher. He is aware of the Captain’s true motivations as a result of the one-eyed, white-masked overseer is definitely Mân (Duy Nguyễn).
Revealing the Captain’s warden as his childhood blood-brother elicits one other difficult query: Why would his good friend torture him like this? The reply exists within the Captain’s reminiscence, particularly throughout the very first scene of “The Sympathizer,” when he walked right into a Saigon movie show anticipating to see “Loss of life Want” with Claude (Robert Downey Jr.) and as a substitute was pressured to sit down and stare as a captured spy was tortured on stage.
“Pressured,” although, will not be the precise phrase. As a communist, the Captain can’t enable the South Vietnamese to brutally assault one in all his comrades. However as a communist spy, he can’t enable himself to be caught, and that supersedes his obligation to a fellow officer. And but, what makes the scene so sophisticated for the Captain is that his ideology and morality are literally aligned — as a communist and a human being, he desires to avoid wasting this girl — however his obligation and fallibility prohibit any motion. He permits it to occur with a view to defend his covert operation, certain, however he additionally permits it to occur as a result of he’s scared of being subsequent, of taking her place, of ending up on a stage as a substitute of within the viewers.
The merciless irony is that’s the place he finally ends up anyway, despite the fact that he wasn’t captured by opposing forces. As an alternative, he and Bôn and all the opposite prisoners are being tortured by the very folks the Captain believed have been combating to finish such atrocities. The contradiction is the purpose — Mân’s level — and thus his reeducation comes right down to understanding the duality of a single sentence: “Nothing is extra treasured than freedom and independence.” In case you’re something like me, you might have to learn Ho Chi Minh’s governing proclamation just a few occasions, with various inflections, earlier than the which means hits dwelling. Nothing is extra treasured than freedom and independence. “Nothing” is the reply. Nothing is aim.
Writer Viet Thanh Nguyen breaks it down additional, writing from the Captain’s perspective within the novel’s closing pages:
However what was this which means? What had I intuited finally? Specifically this: Whereas nothing is extra treasured than independence and freedom, nothing can also be extra treasured than independence and freedom. These two slogans are nearly the identical, however not fairly. … I understood, finally, how our revolution had gone from being the vanguard of political change to the rearguard hoarding energy.
Viet Thanh Nguyen, “The Sympathizer,” p. 360
The Captain goes on to notice that the French and People adopted the identical trajectory — revolutionaries who turned imperialists — and now the North Vietnamese have been imitating their oppressors. “Having liberated ourselves within the identify of independence and freedom … we then disadvantaged our defeated brethren of the identical.”
The sequence doesn’t present such an overt clarification, however the Captain’s transient interplay with the spy (performed by Kayli Tran however by no means given a reputation) is a lot illustrative by itself. “I needed to consider that the key I had guarded was treasured,” she says. “It’s essential to’ve been very disillusioned to seek out your reply in me?” the Captain responds, to which she plainly says, “Nothing can disappoint me now.”
Trying again, her comment carries an analogous double which means to the opposite “nothing” slogan. The most typical interpretation is that she will’t be disillusioned due to every little thing she’s been by way of, and that’s possible true. After experiencing the worst of humanity, what may probably lead her to have excessive expectations of something or anybody else? However one other interpretation is that she’s agreeing with the Captain. He’s her reply, he’s “nothing,” and “nothing” can, actually, disappoint her. She needed to consider what she was guarding was treasured. As an alternative, it was one other individual like her, on a mission simply as meaningless as her personal.
Episode 7 begins in the identical approach it ends: With the Captain embarking on a harmful voyage, the success of which is much from assured, staring on the ghosts that hang-out him. When he sees the Main (Phanxinê) and Sonny (Alan Trong) on the flight to Thailand, he turns to Bôn and asks, “Have you ever ever seen a ghost? Generally I see the ghosts of individuals I’ve killed.” “As a result of they consider they died with out justice,” Bôn replies. “The world is filled with them.” Within the sequence’ closing photographs, as the 2 buddies float out into the ocean, the Captain understands. He’s reconciled his internal battle, however that doesn’t spare him from the ghosts — dozens and dozens of them, lining the shore. There are such a lot of, some have to face within the sea. A whole bunch of souls left adrift as a result of their lives have been misplaced for causes that don’t make sense.
Instinctively, these ultimate moments might really feel irritating, like this epic odyssey goes out with a whimper as a substitute of a bang. There’s no glory in these deaths. There’s no Hollywood ending, touting their bravery or patriotism. However that very feeling additionally serves “The Sympathizer’s” antiwar message. Their contradictions are unresolved, their ends past unsatisfying. And that’s the purpose. As a result of that’s the reality.
Grade: A-
“The Sympathizer” is offered on HBO and Max.