Garbo: The Spy

Garbo: The Spy is a 2009 documentary film written by Edmon Roch, Isaki Lacuesta and Maria Hervera and directed by Edmon Roch. "A portrait of the Spaniard Joan Pujol Garcia, who fought on both sides in two wars without ever having held a weapon. During the Second World War, he was both the German spy Arabel and the British spy Garbo. He earned his British codename because his bosses considered him to be the best actor in the world -- so great w... More

Garbo: The Spy is a 2009 documentary film written by Edmon Roch, Isaki Lacuesta and Maria Hervera and directed by Edmon Roch. "A portrait of the Spaniard Joan Pujol Garcia, who fought on both sides in two wars without ever having held a weapon. During the Second World War, he was both the German spy Arabel and the British spy Garbo. He earned his British codename because his bosses considered him to be the best actor in the world -- so great was the web of lies that he span to deceive his German superiors. In the words of one clearly impressed espionage expert in the film, "The bigger the lie, the more they believed him." In addition to these interviews, most of which are filmed in front of multicolored backgrounds, the film tells Pujol's story primarily through black-and-white archive footage. It interweaves documentary recordings of the events in question with excerpts from various fiction films, from classics like Our Man in Havana to more obscure espionage flicks like the British Pimpernel Smith: a more than fitting form for a film in which the boundary between fact and fiction is fluid and constantly shifting. In the closing credits, Winston Churchill isn't quoted for nothing: "In wartime, truth is so precious that she should always be attended by a bodyguard of lies."" Quoting the program notes from the 2009 IDFA site.

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