Co-produced by the former Soviet Union, France and Switzerland, "43 Years of Tehran" is set in the Tehran Conference during World War II, telling the story of Soviet agent Andrey Andrea, who smashed the assassination plan of Nazi Germany during the Tehran Conference of the Big Three, and continued this story to 35 years later, in 1978.
1943 was a turning point in world war II. With the defeat of the Germans at the Battle of Stalingrad in February of that year, the Allied landings on Sicily in July, and the surrender of Italy in September, the dawn of the world anti-fascist war seemed to be approaching. In November, at the time of the fierce fighting of the Second World War, in order to further strengthen cooperation and advance the process of the world anti-fascist struggle, US President Roosevelt, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill and Supreme Commander Stalin of the Soviet Union decided to hold a secret conference in Tehran. Although the Tehran Conference had blocked the news as a secret meeting, in fact Hitler got the exact information by arranging for the "mole" in the British Embassy, and sent agents to Tehran secretly in advance to prepare for the assassination of the "Big Three". The assassination plan was dubbed "Operation Long Jump." Hitler attempted to change the war situation by assassinating the "Big Three" to sabotage the conference.
Tehran
The film is artistically processed based on this model, and the whole film depicts the story through two timelines: historical line and reality line. In the historical line, the assassination plan planned by German agents was discovered and foiled in time by Soviet intelligence agents led by Andrea. André and The translator Mary, who assisted him in crushing the assassination plot, fell in love in the midst of life and death, but the war separated them from each other. The reality line tells that after 35 years, the lovers, who have been separated for half a lifetime, reunite in France, but the conspiracy of the past era did not dissipate with the end of the war, and for more than thirty years one insider after another was killed, and Mary and André were brutally killed after their long reunion. In the film, the battle of wits and courage of the spies and the love between the hero and heroine are intertwined, weaving a network with other side stories. The film always sets up vivid characters from the perspective of a bystander, and the film narrates in a way full of uncertainty and surprise around the target of the assassination. As the incident unfolded gradually, there was no strong sense of tension, but a sense of indifference and alienation. What the film focuses on is not the event itself, but the people who surround it and their relationships. The feelings of real characters are contrasted with the cruel death, and the individual's powerless struggle against fate in history.
Schneer in the film, whose archetypal character in history may be Skolzner, the leader of the SS STORM troopers in Nazi Germany. Skolzner excelled at performing covert operations and was deeply trusted by Hitler. Schneier in the film is a die-hard, arrogant Nazi. During the war, he firmly carried out the assassination plan, and after the war, he had to kill the insiders one by one, which may be a kind of revenge for the unfinished mission of that year, or to erase this period of history. Life in prison did not make him reflect on the crimes of Nazism, but Schneier was not yet able to see history correctly. When he was released after the hijacking, he said that "as long as he has one minute to be locked up, he will come out in his own way", which also reflects Schneier's failure to recognize the crime he has committed. The outbreak of the hijacking also reflects the fact that the Nazis still exist in peacetime, which is what we should be wary of in this day and age, that is, to prevent the rise of new Nazism.
As an ordinary person in that era, Mary was involved in this complex historical event and took her life to another path, and her love story with Soviet agent Andrei is another narrative focus in this film. Mary and Andre meet for the first time at the airport, meet again on the same plane, and fall in love during the assassination. Their love comes from the tribulations and commonalities between life and death, but is separated by the times. The atmosphere of the whole film is always depressed, the cruel death, the Max of Mune, and the cold Schneer always suppress the emotions of the audience, and the love between Andre and Mary is like the little girl in the red dress in "Schindler's List", which is a touch of red in the repressed film. Even in the peaceful era 35 years later, the two people in the movie still have no lovers to become dependents, is this not the tragedy of the war? The stories in the film often reflect the real society, and the tragedy of the Second World War is not only the eternal separation between lovers, but also the tragedy of countless families. According to incomplete statistics, more than 60 million people died in world war II, which killed their lives and destroyed countless families. Although the people of the world paid a huge price in the anti-fascist war, the people of the world won the final victory in this struggle concerning the fate and future of mankind. Human civilization was saved and world peace was restored. The victory in the world anti-fascist war dealt a heavy blow to international imperialism, and the socialist camp grew stronger. The participation of the colonial and semi-colonial peoples, who constitute the majority of the world's population, in this just war has contributed to an unprecedented upsurge in national liberation movements in Asia, Africa and Latin America.
The film ends with a little girl's smile, and the depressing film also presents hope to the audience at the end.