3. The Face-to-Face Encounter
The inevitable first face-to-face encounter between Bond and Silva was the most bold bucking of Bond convention yet. Sure, Bardem's baddie causes Bond to question his loyalty to the Her Majesty, to himself, and to those within MI-6, but it was window dressing, an argument that he knew he couldn't win he knows the unbreakable nature of double-0 agents all to well. It's when Silva is playfully sauntering up to Bond, caressing his thighs, and attempting to appeal to an implied bisexual past that the typical Bond fan is completely disoriented, flummoxed, vexed, whatever you want to call it. All Bond villains take 007 out of his comfort zone but it's always in a physical sense, and it's typically through violence, through impending doom, through threat to the Crown. It's never sexual, that's left to the femme fatale. Mendes both recreates and deconstructs the typical mano-a-mano machismo that's commonplace in these types of scenes. The smug, smirking Bond isn't as present as in previous incarnations, but he's there. And he even manages to squeeze in a quip towards the end of the scene, which, I think, personifies the ethos of the movie. Bardem's Silva asserts his dominance, divulging classified MI-6 files to Bond from way behind the super-encrypted firewall. In classical form, Bond dismisses the feat, saying that, "everybody's got a hobby." Silva then asks Bond his hobby, with Craig resolutely, stalwartly responding, "Resurrection."