Our editor is forever telling how he loves his high street where he likes to go for a partisan coffee, buy a loaf of partisan bread or give partisan candles as gifts. Frankly he’s an idiot. So he was quite taken back when he found out that The Partisan rather than being about some overpriced coffee shop is actually the true story of what was alleged to be Winston Churchill’s favourite spy Krystyna Skabek.
It’s little surprise that he regarded her so highly having carried out so many dangerous missions so successfully for British intelligence and right from the start she’s in the thick of it skiing over mountains to meet Polish resistance to smuggle out rolls of microfilm. She’s a woman of many roles, one moment assuming the mantle of a sex worker, at another a school teacher and carries out her work with at times an almost reckless determination. It’s her final mission in 1944 that sees her behind enemy lines in France in order to secure an arms drop for the resistance and the danger she faces risking of her own life.
It’s a terrific performance by Morgane Polanski (daughter of Roman) that encapsulates her often headstrong actions yet quick witted enough to get herself out of life threating situations – one such moment sees her bite her tongue to make herself bleed to fake TB to alienate the Nazis detaining her. Assisting her along the way and giving able support is Roger (Frederick Schmidt) who is often taken aback by the lengths to which she will go. And there’s the expected fleeting appearance from a household name actor and here it’s Malcolm McDowell as ‘Trench Coat’ a murky character who is her intelligence handler and liaison for the Brits in one of those, ‘he had an afternoon free’ roles.
The action is competently handled in several stunning locations by writer – director James Marquand that gets the era right. But what is does miss is just what drove her to do this type of extremely dangerous covert work especially when the Nazis here are so unrelentingly brutal. The series of operations she was clearly involved in throughout WII would seem to lend itself more to a mini series than a one off film especially in light of the position she finally found herself in a 1952 dated postscript scene that was safe and low key and a world away from the life of danger she had led.
related feature : ‘The Ministry Of Ungentlemanly Warfare’ – PRIME VIDEO
related feature : The stars and director of Operation Mincemeat answer the audiences questions !
We chat to director James Marquand and actor Frederick Schmidt about The Partisan…
Here’s The Partisan trailer…..
