Official Secrets (3½ Stars)

"The truth is always the first casualty of war".

I immediately liked the film's tag line, which is super-imposed on the film poster. It wasn't until I sat down to write this review that I questioned whether it's a true statement. Maybe it is, maybe it isn't. It varies from case to case, so I would definitely strike the word "always". A lie might be told to justify a war. That was possibly the case in the Iraq War of 2003, when it was claimed that the Iraqi regime was stockpiling weapons of mass destruction. I say possibly, because it's impossible for me to decide after all these years whether it was a lie or a mistake.

It's more often the case that lies are told after a war has ended. It's said that after a war history is written by the winners. If the other side had won, the history books would tell a different story. My favourite example is the statement that World War Two was started by Germany invading Poland. That's something that people in England, America and most other western countries repeat without thinking, but it's only one way of interpreting the facts. It could also be claimed that Germany didn't invade Poland at all; German troops entered German territories that were being occupied by Poland. If Germany had won the war, the "invasion of Poland" would have been called the "liberation of West Prussia and Posen".

Those are interesting topics worth discussing some other time in greater detail. For now, let's stick to the film. It deals with the true story of Katharine Gun, an employee of GCHQ (Government Communications Headquarters) in 2003. She intercepted a message from America to the British government asking for the non-permanent members of the UN Security Council to be put under surveillance to find a means of persuading them to vote in favour of a war against Iraq. The suggestion that diplomats should be blackmailed shocked Katharine so much that she leaked the memo to a friend who was an anti-war activist. The memo found its way to the British newspaper, The Observer.

An investigation was made to find the whistleblower responsible for the leak. At first Katharine denied it was her, but she eventually confessed in order to protect her colleagues who were the main suspects.

This is a fascinating story told with documentary precision. If anything, it's too close to being a documentary. The opening scenes show the actual footage of interviews with politicians like George Bush and Tony Blair. This slows the film down, and it needs at least half an hour to get moving. For me it only became interesting when it focused on the personal drama in Katharine's life. Keira Knightley plays the role perfectly, displaying the emotions of her character while attempting to keep them under control. It's a subtle but very effective performance.

The most shocking part of the film is the way the detectives talk to her about her legal rights. Katharine is allowed to speak to a lawyer, but as an employee of GCHQ she had signed an agreement to adhere to the Official Secrets Act by not talking about her work to anyone. This meant that if she discussed her work with her lawyer, including any details of the case against her, there would be additional charges against her. That makes a mockery of the whole British legal system.