![]() “From this day forward you will be sparrows, weapons in a global struggle for power. Then she tells Dominika and her male and female classmates where they come in: Jennifer Lawrence in “Red Sparrow” “For there to be peace, we must once again place ourselves at the head of nations.” “Only Russia is willing to make the sarficies required for victory,” she proclaims. The West has grown week, drunk on shopping and social media, torn apart by hatred between the races. “It shattered into a thousand dangerous pieces. Speaking in a classic movie-Russian accent, Rampling as Matron stands before her stern-faced charges in a cold, gray classroom and begins her introductory lecture with a geo-political lesson that could have been inspired by Putin’s own rhetorical warnings about the West’s “chaotic darkness.” The sparrow tradition, and its place in a contemporary struggle for world power, is best explained by Matron, the icy, domineering instructor at the school who is played by British actress Charlotte Rampling. Its lissome, linguistically-adept seductresses operate in grand European capitals, tracking their prey at embassy parties, in gilded hotel bars or down cobblestone alleys, where assignations take place in picturesquely run-down pied-à-terres. That’s according to James Matthews, the longtime former CIA agent who wrote the novel “Red Sparrow,” on which the movie is based.Īnd the film posits that such a program still exists in Vladimir Putin’s Russia. Sparrows were - and potentially are - a real phenomenon of Russian spycraft. In the film, Lawrence plays Dominika Egorova, a Boishoi ballerina who suffers a career-ending injury and is recruited to become “a sparrow,” a special “honey trap” spy for the Russian Intelligence Service (SVR). This story was recently front and center in Jennifer Lawrence’s spy thriller “Red Sparrow,” which came and went from movie theaters this spring but is now available for streaming, DVD or video-on-demand. ![]() Such stories also regularly figure into Cold War-era fiction, from Bond films to “The Americans.” ![]() Stories about attractive female spies, trained to who use their sexuality to seduce and compromise foreign assets, have been around even before Mata Hari. She’s the gun-loving, flame-haired Russian national who was indicted this week in federal court, accused of offering sex in exchange for a job and conspiring to “exploit personal connections.” Her alleged aim was to gain access to top Republicans, including presidential candidate Donald Trump, in order to “advance the interests of the Russian Federation,” Mother Jones reported.Īnd, yes, if you thought you’ve heard this story before - or a version of it - you have. In this photo taken on Sunday, April 21, 2013, Maria Butina, leader of a pro-gun organization in Russia, speaks to a crowd during a rally in support of legalizing the possession of handguns in Moscow, Russia. There are many things about life and politics in the Trump era that we once would have thought, “only on reality TV.” Or, “only in the movies.” That’s certainly the case with Maria Butina. ![]()
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