Espion, lève-toi (1982)

Sébastien Grenier (Lino Ventura) is a French secret agent with the Service for External Documentation and Counter-Espionage (SDECE), who has been inactive for eight years. He runs a trust company in Zurich and shares his life with Anna Gretz (Krystyna Janda), a German professor of comparative literature whose far-left views are openly displayed. One morning, he hears on the radio that an SDECE agent he had arranged to meet, Alfred Zimmer, has just been shot dead on a tram by a commando unit from the Popular Action Brigades, a far-left organization operating in Zurich. That same afternoon, a copy of Alexandre Dumas’s Joseph Balsamo arrives by post, marked with a [missing text], a code that tells him his superiors have “woken him up.” When he goes to the agreed meeting, he is surprised to be approached by a man named Jean-Paul Chance (Michel Piccoli), a maître des requêtes at the Federal Council in Bern, who also introduces himself as an agent of the Swiss secret services. Having been thoroughly briefed on Grenier’s life, Chance asks him to trace the “Zimmer” network to find out who controls the Popular Action Brigades, and threatens to have him arrested for espionage if he fails. Surprised and unsettled by the ambiguity of this contact, Grenier sends his base the emergency procedure code in the form of a small advertisement in the Tages-Anzeiger. Once again, Chance turns up at the meeting, this time claiming to be his SDECE case officer—and makes it clear that he “woke him up” because of Anna Gretz’s contacts with certain members of the Popular Action Brigades. Thrown off balance, Grenier arranges to meet Henri Marchand (Bernard Fresson), a Geneva businessman, another regional SDECE agent, and a personal friend, to find out who this mysterious Chance is, apparently an agent of both the French and Swiss services. Marchand suggests a third possibility and promises to quickly tell Grenier whether Chance really is their superior. Marchand is murdered before he can do anything. Grenier then decides to bypass the chain of command and goes to Munich to meet Meyer (Heinz Bennent), a conservator who is also a senior SDECE agent, and tell him about his doubts and fears. When Grenier goes back the following day to check in, he arrives at the Munich library. But Meyer, too, has just been murdered. Back in Zurich, Chance meets him at the airport, unhappy with the irregularity of his actions. That evening, Grenier receives a phone call from Richard (Bruno Cremer), an agent sent from Paris. The next day, he meets Richard, who tells him that Chance is a Soviet spy trying to turn him. He also informs him that Paris had nothing to do with his “waking up.” Meanwhile, the Popular Action Brigades assassinate Councillor Kieffer, a senior federal official, as he leaves an official visit to the University of Zurich. Anna Gretz and several of her leftist colleagues are immediately arrested by the Swiss police. Chance offers Grenier the use of his influence to get Anna Gretz released as soon as possible. He pressures Commissioner Lohmann (Roger Jendly), who agrees to release Grenier’s partner. Chance then tells Grenier that Richard is actually a KGB officer, probably responsible for Councillor Kieffer’s assassination, and asks him to help neutralize him. No longer knowing whom to believe, Grenier decides to try to flee. He retrieves two false passports he had kept, picks up Anna Gretz when she is released from custody, and tells her they must leave immediately for Amsterdam under false identities, abandoning everything at once. Anna agrees to go with him, but wants to call her mother before they leave. As she makes the call from a phone booth, a group of masked men abducts her in front of Grenier. Richard then joins Grenier and tells him that his dithering and ties to Chance could cost him dearly. He tells him to forget Anna Gretz or he will be executed. Grenier refuses and sends Richard away, threatening retaliation if anything happens to his partner. That evening, a police officer comes to his home and takes him to the university, where Anna Gretz has been found in the trunk of a car, shot in the head. The killing is claimed by the Popular Action Brigades. With nothing left to lose, Grenier decides to settle the matter and finally find out whether Richard or Chance had Anna Gretz killed. In a matter of hours, he traces the network of leftist students who were friends of his partner and reaches Ramos (Marc Mazza), a sinister figure who appears to be an Eastern Bloc mole who has infiltrated the Popular Action Brigades. After shooting him, Grenier gets Ramos’s deputy and lover, Rudy the Blonde, to reveal where Ramos was due to meet his case officer: the lower station of the Polybahn funicular. He goes there immediately and comes face to face with Chance, whom he coldly shoots, convinced that he is the one responsible for Anna Gretz’s death. The following evening, an official at the Élysée Palace orders Richard to eliminate Grenier, who has become completely uncontrollable. We learn in passing that Chance was indeed working for the Soviets, but that it was Richard’s men who shot Anna Gretz. The next morning, Anna is buried in Zurich’s Catholic cemetery. Grenier watches the funeral from a distance, at the edge of a nearby wood, but Richard, who is among the mourners, spots him. Richard and two of his men chase him into the woods and shoot him three times in the back as he is about to get into his car, parked on a dirt track. The three men dig a makeshift grave in the woods, bury the body, and cover the disturbed earth with dead leaves. The narrator says that Grenier’s body will be found by hunters two years later, though it will not be possible to identify it.