Theo Faron
The disillusioned man who keeps walking: even a cure, he says, would come too late, and he acts as though there were still something to save.
film · 2006
A former activist turned civil servant in London, Theo moves through a childless world with a whisky and a weary irony. His ex-wife Julian asks him to help Kee, a young refugee, get out of the country. He agrees at first for money. The film follows him step by step without lending him a conversion or a speech: it is through his gestures that he moves from indifference to caring for a person.
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Justification
At first Theo makes a show of believing in nothing: even if a cure were found, he says in substance, it would be too late. He never professes any hope. Yet he keeps going with Kee at every point where he could give up, . What he says places him on the side of ; what he does belongs to a hope without optimism, one that acts without certainty about the outcome.
The opening: the death of "Baby Diego" and the café bombing · Theo's kidnapping by the Fishes · The rowboat and the <i>Tomorrow</i>
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Justification
Theo invokes neither principle nor calculation: he protects Kee because she is there and depends on him. This is the concrete attention to a vulnerable person of , together with a refusal to treat her as a mere means.
The Fishes' farm: the meeting Theo overhears · Marichka's room · The battle of Bexhill and the besieged building
Justification
Theo never takes part in the fighting and crosses the war without a gun. But he is no pacifist: He refuses force as the means of a cause and admits it only to defend a threatened life, which brings him close to just-war thinking, with a marked preference for avoiding combat.
The ambush on the road · The confrontation with Syd · The battle of Bexhill and the besieged building
Justification
Theo starts by putting a price on his help: he wants money for the transit papers. He ends up risking his life for a stranger. The film makes this slide from self-interest to self-giving the very movement of the character.
Theo's kidnapping by the Fishes · The rowboat and the <i>Tomorrow</i>
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Justification
Theo acts for a person who is present more than for generations to come, whom he never mentions.
The rowboat and the <i>Tomorrow</i>