Ben Affleck’s “Argo,” which opened Oct. 12, tells the true story of a movie that never existed: a plot, in the caper sense of that word, to free six Americans hiding out in the Canadian embassy in 1979 Tehran, Iran.
It is the (mostly) true account of two Hollywood mavens (played by John Goodman and Alan Arkin, who took charge, on behalf of CIA officer Tony Mendez (played by Affleck), of the movie that didn’t exist; and of Mendez, who went into Iran with the fake-movie cover story and, thanks to the Canadian government, six fake Canadian passports, one for each American stuck at the embassy.
And so the true story does have its caper elements: Yankee captives of a hostile, foreign government and a frankly outlandish plot to get them out. Mendez will brief the six on their new identities and their “jobs” in creating the fake movie. Then, given a few lucky breaks, they will pass Iranian airport security and board a plane for the safety of Switzerland.
But “Argo” opens in grit and slow-grinding horror. Even its more fanciful moments, played purely for comedy, play over those pervasive pedal tones.
Historical perspective
“Argo” opens with the people of Tehran overrunning the U.S. embassy on Nov. 4, 1979. Years after spearheading a coup to install Mohammad Rezā Shāh Pahlavī in power, our nation watches revolution, the Shah’s frenzied fleeing to U.S. soil and the return to Iran of Sayyed Ruhollah Musavi Khomeini, vilified in America as the Ayatollah.
No other film I can think of gets that student-led insurrection and occupation the right look and feel: the anxious watching as the besieged watch the besiegers swarm; the slow, then the rapid, breakdown of security; the staff’s frantic shouting matches followed by stiff, resigned postures as blindfolds wind around their eyes — it seemed palpable to the point where I had trouble breathing. Vintage news footage blends with freshly shot re-creations.
A young, bearded man stands on a roof, waving an America flag aflame. The flag feeds the fire, seeming to disintegrate completely, except for its borders, which still burn.
Many of those taken hostage that day would not be released until 444 days later. The six staffers in “Argo,” though, ran out onto the streets of Tehran and eventually found sanctuary with the Canadians.
Behind the scenes
Affleck deftly directs everyone in this ensemble film, including himself. He buries his famous face behind a thick, black beard (the real Tony Mendez, was a master of disguise) and lets small, casual moments demonstrate his character’s alcoholism.
This is no James Bond movie: People sweat unattractively, lose their nerve loudly and curse those meant to save them. Yet, the tightly pulled suspense remarkably outstrips the suspense in any typical James Bond movie.
Arkin and Goodman head up the fake movie’s fake production headquarters in the actual Hollywood; they play off each other richly enough to take their act to TV.
Affleck’s Mendez, stuck in Tehran with the grim business, knows he can expect seven public executions on Iranian television if he fails. He isn’t, thanks to the booze, especially worried about his own head, only the other six.
Mendez’s son Toby, seen briefly as a kid in “Argo,” grew up to sculpt monuments. He’s sculpted Gandhi, Thurgood Marshall and parts of the Navy Memorial. But he’s never sculpted his own father. The “Canadian Caper” documents were not fully declassified until 1997, under President Bill Clinton.
Mendez now works for the International Spy Museum in Washington, D.C., one of the few museums in our capital not administered by the federal government. I wonder if he misses the sweat, the grit and the race against life.