Before the North American premiere of “Wasp Network” at the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) last week, director Olivier Assayas appeared to introduce the film to the audience. “I hope you enjoy it,” he said. He then immediately retracted his statement. “Well, I’m not sure it’s a film to be enjoyed, actually.” It’s a very Assayas thing to say but also indicative of what Assayas is doing with the complex and tough “Wasp Network,” a film that is, perhaps, not conventionally enjoyable. The film has been a difficult one to pin down and Assayas is well aware of that. “This is not a spy thriller but a movie of modern history,” he said. It’s a descriptor that seems as apt as anything written about the film. He continued, “This is a film about people whose lives are crushed by history.” Films shouldn’t have to explain themselves, and yet I think “Wasp Network” benefits from contextualising it in relation to Assayas’ words. This is a film that presents itself as both historical document and fictional entertainment and feels like the ideal exception to the rule that the text should be only judged by things within the text. Because, despite whatever Assayas says, many regard “Wasp Network” as a spy thriller. And when assessed under that rubric, the film might seem peculiar, but considered against another rubric “Wasp Network” feels vital.
It’s easy to think of “Wasp Network” in relation to Assayas’ last film with Edgar Ramirez. In 2010 the lengthy “Carlos”, a biopic of sorts about “Carlos the Jackal” sought to investigate history in a film committed to realistic representations about a different Latin American figure. “Wasp Network” emerges from that same school of filmmaking. The title at the beginning announces its debt to the truth as we head to Cuba in the early 1990s. The film concerns a group of Cuban spies stationed in America who try to combat dissident anti-Castro forces. We don’t get a clear explanation of how this works until the middle of the film (in an excellent montage scene) which is typical of the way that “Wasp Network” oftentimes leaves the audience in the dark, trying to make sense of the labyrinth running through it. It’s easy to see how that sort of bullish discursiveness might be hard to follow, in theory. But, if a piece of art teaches us how to read it, then Assayas – in full control of his directorial abilities – is giving us all we need.
The film’s narrative is precipitated by a bizarre event played in the most understated way. René Gonzalez wakes up in Cuba one morning, kisses his wife and daughter and goes off to work and then steals a plane and flies to America. The scenario, presented in the most casual manner, is immediately intriguing for the way that Assayas deliberately spurns any thriller-esque build-up to any kind of conventional storytelling ideas of the genre. It’s the first, in a series, of signs that Assayas is, if anything, making an anti-thriller. Instead, his thesis may best be represented in a scene with a minor character late in the film. A young boy is hired by a dissident group to plant some bombs in hotels across Cuba to destabilise trust in the Cuban government. He gets caught, and what’s peculiar about the way his capture is shot is that Assayas affords a similar level of distant, but still present, empathy to him as he does to our protagonists. As if to say, ‘Look at what this situation has wrought.’ The moment is compelling in presenting his point from the premiere. These are persons ‘crushed by history.’ It’s such a good hook, and one that so excellently presents what’s happening here.
“Wasp Network” cannot, or rather opts not to, present anything resembling a palatable idea of nationalism or spying and instead gives us vignettes of key players in the eponymous group over the course of the year. Despite her top-billing Penelope Cruz as Olga, wife to René (Edgar Ramirez in good-form as usual), is at first a minor character whose importance grows in the second half reacting to the allegiances between family and country. She’s the only non-Latin American main cast member (Assayas casts the film with Brazlians, Mexicans, and Cubans, giving the film a distinct cultural flair) but offers the strongest turn in the film. Her work here is a happy reminder that Cruz continues to be one of the strongest actors of her generation, creating emotional beats in moments that sometimes threaten to resist audience-empathy. Ramirez and Cruz turn the final conversation between the two into something that seems too tender, for a film that has hitherto been almost teasingly unsentimental.
As a director, Assayas has always had a thing for the discursive – showing how X things leads to Y and to Z but was precipitated by L or M or N. Sometimes it feels as if his films are digressing within digressions, and it doesn’t work for everyone. But the style made for great work in his “Non-Fiction” which was a highlight of TIFF in 2018 and “Wasp Network” harnesses that tool to different, but more rewarding results. His opening statement that the film may not be enjoyed seems apt enough. The authorial intent is so indistinct that the requisite title-cards at the film’s end informing us of various characters’ fates played as particularly intriguing at the premiere. Should we laugh? Cry? Sympathise? Criticise? “Wasp Network” may frustrate by not offering clear codes for allegiances, but it gains value in explicating the uncomfortable dichotomies of hero/villain or betrayer/informant in compelling ways.