Mr. 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.

Here with scarce votes and just two dozens reviews, I was jolted by so lowest numbers, Joseph Losey made a beguiling movie surround by mysterious events on Kafkaesque fingerprints all over, the picture takes place in a bleak time at occupied Paris by Nazi-forces in 1942 Mr. Klein (Alain Delon) a thoroughbred bon vivant art dealer who handle as black vulture devouring the distraught Jews that came to him to sell their pieces of art in order to escape to foreign parts, then came up the unexpected, Monsieur Klein now was mistaken by a Jew namesake, henceforth his easy life turns upside down, he tracks down his wrongdoer unflaggingly thru the Paris, receiving strange letter that seemingly goes to nowhere, on his chase an empty room at decaying neighborhood shall be the answer, there he finds some sizeable clues as photo and an odd sheet music, nonetheless the time is running out, the worry Mr. Klein with the police at his neck, he ought proves that his family's roots are France's purebred, rarest picture indeed, approaching the atrocious Holocaust and their havoc at Jewish community on Europe, while in sluggish pace, but never boring, plus letting the eager viewer mesmerized on the screen, the outcome is apotheotic and was enforced by personal reasons, worthwhile the two hours of pure magic!!

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First watch: 2021 / How many: 1 / Source: DVD / Rating: 9

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.

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.

Joseph Losey's dark moody drama of a man and his double or his shadow takes place in Paris of 1942 during the Nazi Occupation. Mr. Klein, in excellent performance by Alain Delon (if anybody ever tells you that Delon is nothing but a pretty face, NEVER believe it. Delon is a great actor with amazing screen presence who happened to be one of the most beautiful people ever lived), is a French Catholic antique dealer, successful with his business and adored by the ladies. At first, he does not care much about the occupation and the fate of Jews who had to sell their pricey pieces of Art and personal belongings for a song just to be able to leave France and to save their lives. On the contrary, he only becomes richer but everything changes when he is confused with another Robert Klein, his namesake, a wanted by the authorities' member of the underground resistance and a Jew. In the atmosphere of the total fear, bigotry, hatred, and paranoia, the "presumption of innocence" ceases to exist and Mr. Klein must prove that he is not a Jew or to face the fate of millions whose fault was to belong to the "inferior race". While trying to claim his comfortable life back, Mr. Klein begins looking for the man he never met but who by the bitter irony of fate had played such a significant role in his life. The desire to look him in the eye becomes so overwhelming that it will take Robert to where he may not be able to ever come back.

"Mr. Klein" is a complex, subtle, scary, and nightmarish film made by a very talented director who had to leave his country, the USA, in the beginning of the 50s and who knew a thing or two about paranoia and hatred multiplied by the power and turned into indifferent killing machine. Once you are inside this machine, "Abandon hope all ye who enter here". Losey's film is often described as a blend of Hitchcock's thrillers where the heroes must deal with the mistaken identity and Kafka's nightmares of "The Trial" and I agree with the description. I only want to add that the film brings to mind Edgar Poe's short story "William Wilson" which was adapted to the screen by Luis Malle as a part of the trilogy "Histoires extraordinaires" (1968) and Alain Delon played both William Wilson and the mysterious man, his double, his conscience, his dark and hidden side. "Mr. Klein" also reminds another underrated, rarely seen but very interesting Ingmar Bergman's film "The Serpent's Egg" (1977) as well as Bob Fosse's masterpiece "Cabaret". The themes of the Feast during the Time of Plague, the helplessness and distress of the terrorized members of society that face the merciless and inevitable force of history and would perish without a trace, are similar in all three movies. Despite these similarities, "Mr. Klein" is an outstanding film on its own merits. What saddens me is the fact that is little known, rarely seen and almost never mentioned even among the film buffs.