Monsieur Klein

Alain Delon is "Mr. Klein," a man profiting off the misfortune of French Jews during World War II in this 1976 film directed by Joseph Losey.

Robert Klein is man buying art work at severely reduced prices from desperate Jews, and for him, it's just business. When he receives a Jewish newspaper addressed to him, however, he becomes concerned, less he be suspected of being Jewish himself. His investigation leads him to another Robert Klein, who lived in reduced circumstances, supposedly resembles him, and whose new address has been given as Klein's own.

This is a fascinating film about how, in the end, we all become victims of prevailing injustice. There is a great deal of symbolism throughout; Delon's Klein becomes obsessed with the other Klein, and their lives become inextricably entangled.

After this film, you'll be left with many questions, for which there are probably several answers. Thus is the beauty of "Mr. Klein," a wonderfully directed and acted film. Delon, as an arrogant and confused man, has rarely been better. He is one actor who, due partially to a nice long life, has been able to extend his range beyond staggering good looks and play interesting, challenging characters; he is a producer of this film.

This is highly recommended and certainly a credit to the filmmaking skills of Joseph Losey as well as the taste and talent of Alain Delon.

CONTAINS SPOILERS

A doctor's office.A woman stands here in the nude.He's no longer a doctor but a vet,examining the scared patient as if she's a cow."She might belong to those inferior races.A dubious case."He mumbles to his nurse.

"Monsieur Klein" is rarely mentioned when they praise Joseph Losey.It could be his finest achievement ,the success of a work fascinated by decay,from "the gypsy and the gentleman" to "the servant".

Like the heroes of the two mentioned works,when the movie begins,Monsieur Klein (Alain Delon,whose performance is memorable,anyway it's his last great part)is a bon vivant.A bourgeois vulture who buys paintings and other works of art for next to nothing from the Jews during the Occupation in France.One day,he receives a news paper called "les informations juives".Thus he discovers he's got a namesake.At first puzzled,Klein becomes more and more involved in a search of this man ,his doppelganger,his twin,who plays cat and mouse with him.Both realist and dreamlike,not to say nightmarish,à la Kafka,and metaphysical,à la Borges ,as the precedent user wrote,Klein's quest is both mad and logical,absurd and passionate.A sublime sequence shows Delon in a crowded café :a waiter 's calling "Monsieur Klein";first he does not care because he knows "they " call the "other",but finally,he asks the waiter who tells him that the person who called "Monsieur Klein" looked just like him.Then the baffled Delon sees his reflection in a mirror.

In 1942,in Paris ,there are ominous plans.In the desert streets ,in the small early hours,French gendarmes silently move ,as if they are rehearsing for something better left unsaid.The color movie almost turns black and white in a riveting cinematographic tour de force.

Robert Klein becomes like Lewis Caroll's Alice in the well.He could avoid the fall,but he will not.His world,now that he's a suspect for the police,is collapsing.It's his turn to sell his valuable properties for a song.

In the vel' d'hiv' (winter velodrome),the roundup of Jews had begun.Klein could escape,because his lawyer found the papers that proved that "he 's got no Jewish blood in his veins",but he would like to know this other himself and he would follow him even if it were into hell.It was indeed,as the train slowly moves off,heading for the concentration camps.

A first-class work,"Monsieur Klein" leaves the audience numb and ill-at-ease.A topflight supporting cast (Suzanne Flon,Jean Bouise,Michel Lonsdale,Jeanne Moreau) shines.

By far the most popular kind of film produced in 70s France was the policier, in which dogged detectives and po-faced policemen plodded through dour crime narratives after charismatic criminals. Generally reactionary, many featured Alain Delon, along with Jean-Paul Belmondo, France's biggest star.

MONSIEUR KLEIN is a very different Delon policier. Set in Occupied Paris, its police are Gestapo stooges doggedly and po-facedly seeking out phoney Frenchmen, with one of whom Klein, Catholic, collaborationist-befriending, art-dealing war-profiteer, seems to be confused, with inevitable consequences.

Losey's nausea-inducing camerawork, his use of ugly colour and shadows which literally swallows up the brightest of film-stars, the recreation of Nazi France, the playing with ideas of play, the combining of exciting thriller with Borges and Kafka, makes this one of the best films of the 70s.

Paris art dealer in Vichy France (Alain Delon) who has a small but significant part in the heist of European works of art finds that he is under suspicion after he begins to investigate another man with his name who has a subscription to a government sanctioned Jewish newspaper. Of course, the police have the names and addresses of all the paper's readers, and are also busy organizing for the expulsion of the entire Jewish population of Paris, many of whom are forced to sell their cherished paintings for near nothing, which are then auctioned off to eager buyers. The auctions are formal affairs, dressed up to legitimize the robbery that took place. At the same time, Delon's curiosity about this other man with his name and appearance (Robert Klein) becomes an investigation for him to prove his own identity and roots. In the midst of it all is a brilliantly and subtly portrayed decay of society, especially in a memorably filmed anti-semitic cabaret scene, where German officers mingle with the French upper middle-class, laughing along to an incredibly insulting act.

Delon as the classic "individualist" who profiteers until finally the Brechtian idea of "first they came for 'x', you weren't concerned..." simply happened is a paranoiac, gloomy view of France during the war. A bit heavy-handed from the start, nevertheless is thrilling and keeps you wondering what is really happening till the end. Harder to follow than any Hitchcock or Christie, probably on purpose, as if to say: Life is not always so clear cut.

Lady Moreau and Francine Bergé could have had more "character development", while beautiful leggy Juliet Berto's long figure and erratic behaviour is all we can see from Bob's fiancé. Robert is cold, intelligent, self assured, able to answer like a French writer while his house is being requisitioned by the police. Lonsdale, from many Buñuel films, gives us the eerie feeling so necessary for this film to succeed. Jugnot and Aumont deliver in their smaller roles. Suzanne Flon, from "Un crime au paradis" among others, is convincing in her obfuscated part.

Gerry Fisher's cinematography and Egisto Macchi's score make this film stand apart, you've get the feeling of "really being there". In the grim and everyday aspects, not fictionalized for being palatable. mackjay from IMDb writes: "Klein's mixture of desperation and arrogance with so much conviction, it's easy to forget he is, after all, acting". C. Tashiro adds that the Nazi horrors are taken for granted, making them more real. Like J. L. Borges usually quipped: "There are no camels in the 1001 nights" meaning those involved don't notice what we, the viewers, probably would.

Franco Solinas's script conveys paranoia as faced by somebody who seems never to have suffered for anything, nor anybody for that matter.

Great film, but obviously, not "light viewing". Maybe a tad slow for nowadays's viewers.

Gripping!!