Les patriotes

I picked this film out of the hundreds of foreign DVD's in Toronto's best video store - Bay Video. I thought it was a recent Israeli production and it wasn't until I got it home I realized the film was a French production made in 1994. However, I wasn't disappointed at all and consider this wonderful film one of the best spy 'thrillers' I have ever seen. Understated like the profession of spying and subtle to the point of seduction this film doesn't fudge the issues surrounding the necessity for such a service to exist in modern Israel nor does it gloss over some of the hard facts when innocents become collateral damage. The acting, the sets, the writing are all first rate and it's probably one of the best reasons to watch this film. I guarantee you won't want it to end without finding out what happens to all the characters.

There are a couple of fine performances here: Yvan Attal is very good as the Mossad agent who must use dirty tactics to achieve political goals yet who falls for a hooker, which does nothing for his esteem with his superiors, and Richard Masur is superb as the Jewish-American scientist (cf Jonathan Pollard) who talks himself into betraying his country because of emotional commitments to Israel. This really ought to be seen by all lovers of John le Carre's works, since it is in the same vein of violence and melancholy.

What so many French movies lack in storytelling, they make up in humor, irony and self-deprecation. This one takes itself seriously, and it really shouldn't. It never found an audience and was an utter commercial failure when it came out in 1994. To this day, the director seems to think "the press" was responsible. Well, no: the reason it failed is that there is no plot, characters and scenes are utter clichés, cinematography is uninspired and even sound design is poor.

It is utterly vulgar in nature, and sexist. A hooker is shown naked during several long shots, but when the male main character gets up from bed after sex, he wears boxers!

It's also long and slow. Actors were apparently told to insert random silences in their dialogue, sometimes between words, to sound deep? But that's not deep, it's dumb.

Utter waste of time.

Les Patriotes tells the story of a young Jewish Frenchman who decides to emigrate in Israel in order to join the famous Mossad. I don't think the scriptwriters intended to reveal us the truth about the world's most secret service (who can claim to really have solid informations about that?). Yet they wrote an excellent screenplay, worth the best spy movies. Les Patriotes is an exciting description of the daily work of the spies. It is a beautifully-acted movie that doesn't show off and in the same time tells us a lot of things. It is a captivating vision of what a state manipulation is. So, if you have the chance, see it!

There is a genre of drama that walks a fine line between fact and fiction. The classic films Compulsion and Inherit the Wind are but two examples of such dramas. The first spun a tale that in many ways resembles the celebrated Leopold-Loeb case involving the "thrill" murder of Bobby Franks in Chicago in the 1920s. The other concerns the famous Scopes "monkey" trial in Dayton, Tennessee during the same period. Ironically, both defendants were represented by attorney Clarence Darrow.

Les Patriotes includes such a plot aspect in its second half, as it relates the story of an American husband and wife (Richard Masur and Nancy Allen), who become ensnared in an effort by the husband to share US secret information with Israel via involvement with its secret police---the Mossad. The story is complex and is built upon a dense yet realistic narrative. It seems clear that the couple are really stand-ins for the unidentifird famous (or as some believe infamous) real-life Jonathan Pollards.

In this respect, Les Patriotes bears a resemblance to an acclaimed series of semi-documentary "fact/fiction" movies made by 20th Century-Fox in the late 1940s (Boomerang, House on 92nd St., Call Northside 777, Mister 880, etc.). Those films incorporated an emphasized sense of realism through use of rare (for that time) location shooting and a more naturalistic acting style. A difference between the two may rest in the fact that the Fox movies told their gritty black and white stories in a relatively crisp amount of running time, whereas Les Patriotes took considerably longer to develop its colorful labyrinthian plot---and also took advantage of freedom from prior censorship restrictions in doing so.

Les Patriotes is a thrilling film that cleverly blends fact and fiction in a way that actually is similar to those highly successful Fox releases of the late 1940s. At times, we seem to be standing in the same uncomfortable shoes worn by our principal Mossad agent as he gradually accumulates the layers of experience required to assume even greater responsibilities working in the dangerous and murky world of spying and espionage. The rather subtle plot devices used to illustrate the complexities of our hero's constricted personal life are interesting and at times even somewhat (surprisingly) humorous.

This film may have to be seen more than once to fully grasp all of its elements, but the journey seems well worth it.