This is what my mind looks like from the inside

talkaboutpreciousthings:

You know the song which ends the film, La Mer? We choose it just because we fantasised about George Smiley listening to it home alone. We wanted to somehow give an impression of his inner being. So the choice of the kind of music he could possibly listen to was very important. It could absolutely not be Beethoven. And not something too typically British, like Music Hall.

But then I found this recording of La Mer done by Julio Iglesias from the beginning of the 1970’s, recorded live at the Olympia in Paris. Julio Iglesias was a great singer at this time. I have a few albums which are damn good. Julio Iglesias version of La Mer becomes representative of everything the world of MI6 isn’t. Instead of damp streets and old men smoking in rooms it’s sea and sun and the beach, perhaps a golden bracelet around the wrist. And so we get a more romantic image of George Smiley.

- Tomas Alfredson on why he chose Julio Iglesias singing La Mer to end Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy.

One of my favourite film endings this. It’s exactly like Tomas says, it’s like opening a window to world so very, very different to theirs. And the melancholic irony of the song being played just heightens the bleakness and the tragedy of the events in the most beautiful way possible.