which I keep chipping my teeth.
In the first working draft "Paul" was smuggling political dissidents and
refuges out of the city in the expectation of a government crackdown.
The stakes were therefore exceptionally high; if "Lily" inadvertently revealed
during interrogation information that led back to "Paul", he would lose not
only his freedom, his career, possibly his life, but also his ability to
protect his family.
So he mistranslated her confession to deflect attention away from his
involvement.
Alas, further research, plus condensing the material so that it would cohere
as cinema made "Paul the people-smuggler" a non-starter. Not so much because
he couldn't or wouldn't have got involved, but because I couldn't see how
"Lily the forger" could have knowledge of it.
And the 3rd Act no longer worked, because everyone was behaving badly without
sufficient motive. The stakes were just not that high for Paul any more, and
he came across as a neurotic shit.
Every thing I have tried to invoke to replicate that original jeopardy -
without making the story over-complex* - has failed.
(*Good film is simple, not simplistic. The emotional journey can be complex,
the obstacles can be complex, but the hook for the story is simple.)
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