Mata Hari

Plots: Mata Hari is a beautiful dancer of Dutch origin working in Paris. It is August 1914 and war between France and Germany seems imminent. However, she accepts an invitation to travel to Berlin as part of a show. Mata Hari is a beautiful Dutch-born dancer, working in Paris. It is August 1914 and war between France and Germany seems imminent. However, she accepts an invitation to travel to Berlin as part of a show. On the train she meets a young German army officer but any thoughts of romance are cut short when a French agent is murdered on the train, while in her company. She is arrested in Germany but freed when the German officer intervenes. While in Germany war breaks out and she is recruited by German Intelligence to spy on France. The film’s convoluted plot is anchored by a fictitious love triangle between Mata Hari (Sylvia Kristel) and two military intelligence officers, the French Georges Ladoux (Oliver Tobias) and the German Karl von Bayerling (Christopher Cazenove). Ladoux and Bayerling are personal friends but end up on opposing sides of the war, providing ample opportunity to explore the dramatic tension between honor and personal loyalty on the one hand and patriotism and duty to one’s country on the other. Their ethical dilemma is contrasted to the amoral scheming of the main villain, Dr. Elsbeth Schragmüller (Gaye Brown) (invariably known as Fräulein Doktor), a doctor of psychology and leading operative of German intelligence. Mata Hari’s efforts to thwart Fräulein Doktor’s assassination plot using a concealed bomb are eventually successful but lead her to be captured in deeply compromising circumstances by Ladoux, precipitating her show trial and execution, which Ladoux fruitlessly tries to prevent. The film ends on a melancholy note with the reconciliation of Ladoux and Bayerling after the war.