Does Brandauer overact as one commenter has charged? At some parts of this brilliant, enigmatic film it could be argued that he does. But some histrionics might be expected from a man alone in a room who has been ordered to shoot himself and be quick about it.

This is as much a political movie as a biographical one. It takes many liberties with the historical record. The generally accepted version is that Alfred Redl was being blackmailed by the Russian secret service which had learned of his homosexuality. There are NO Russians in this movie. That Redl was homosexual is only obliquely stated until the final thirty minutes. Indeed, before that he has relations with several women: a Vienna prostitute who acts the Happy Hooker indeed and the (married) sister of a fellow officer.

In this film the poor performance of the Austrian armies in World War I is explained by an officer corps more concerned with drinking, card playing and skirt chasing than with military matters. Redl's handing over to his Russian controllers the troop dispositions for the Austrian armies is generally believed to be the cause of the losses during the opening stage of the War.

The doomed Archduke Franz Ferdinand's only fault supposedly was that he lacked charm. Here the veteran German actor Mueller-Stahl portrays the **Thronfolger** as a political schemer, a shabby little man (he always appears unshaven) trying to hold the Monarchy together through trumped-up conspiracies and the playing off of one nationality against another.

What this picture does best is portray the hollow grandeur of Habsburg Austria during its final years. The sets are magnificent. In one telling scene early in the picture, the boy Alfred, invited to an aristocratic home, spills some coffee and **four** servants come to clean up the spill.

One minor quibble: this German-language movie is set in the Austrian Empire, much of it in Vienna the capital, yet no one sounds Austrian. The accent is very different from High German (Americans may compare Kissinger and Schwartzenegger). It would be like "Gone With the Wind" with all the Southerners speaking a kind of Oxford English.

Unlike most people who know both films (there aren't many!), I've always preferred this 1985 film to Klaus Maria Brandauer's - and director István Szabó's Oscar winning 'Mephisto', from 1981.

'Mephisto' won an Oscar, for Foreign language film and as such, István Szabó remains Hungary's only ever Academy Award recipient. The two films have similarities, with Brandauer giving superbly nuanced yet powerful performances and both as high ranking Military Officers, German in Mephisto and Austro-Hungarian in this.

Colonel Redl is a made up character that is drawn from historical records and the story that ensues is based on John Osborne's play 'A Patriot for Me' and we follow Redl as boy, all the way through to his high-ranking officer just before the onset of the Great War. It's a compelling study of the decaying Empire that so dominated turn-of-the- century Europe and the bubbling resentments and labelling of ethnic groups within that start to make us feel us uncomfortable as the recognisable Monster that was to become becomes apparent.

It is Brandauer's calm and chilly persona that is both compelling and slightly disturbing. In Mephisto, in comparison, he is far more dramatic, even over-the-top, though the critics might say otherwise. As Redl coolly bulldozes his way through the ranks, craftily getting on the right side of everyone he needs to, his feelings toward a younger officer let slip and after the affair, his decimation from power is calculatingly abrupt and shocking, revealing a paranoid State.

There is excellent support from Armin Mueller-Stahl, recognisable from many English speaking films, usually as a German SS officer, as the doomed but supremely powerful and influential Archduke Franz Ferdinand.

The period detail is perfect as is the cinematography, looking radiantly splendid in the great halls and ballrooms, beautifully evocative in the snowy wastelands and suitably grim in the film's darker moments.

As I said, Colonel Redl certainly deserves to be as known as Mephisto - and of course, both far more than just specialist films for Art House lovers, that they seem to be casually categorised as.

My DVD was a Korean release that, once the subtitles were changed to English (from the default Korean) played like just like a 'normal' one.