J'ai vu tuer Ben Barka

it takes courage to make a stylish film nowadays, especially about a neglected -nearly obsolete today shall I say- political scandal. Through a clever use of newsreel footage, it brings us to a crucial thought: the 60s attended the birth of some major humanist leaders from Che Guevara, Ho Chi Min, Martin Luther King to Ben Barka who were mostly to be assassinated. Its highly-charged atmosphere and frantic pace reminded me of some Billy Wilder film noir pictures of whom the director must have definitely been under the influence,let's say the voice-off intro of Charles Berling talking about his story while we're seeing him lying dead on the floor of his apartment sends you directly to Sunset Bld. -without the bloody swimming-pool, the chaptered montage winks at Fortune Cookie,... which is overly rejoicing not only because of that Wilderesque presence but it shows that somehow some directors still bears in mind that movies -whatever their subject- have to be entertaining in a sense that they'll procure pleasure to its viewer. A lot could be said about the effort of historical reenactment: in spite of its obviously low budget -see Berling's mustache and fake scar, it's very efficient thanks to its brilliant casting - Jean-Pierre Léaud as a paranoid Georges Franju, an impressive Simon Abkarian as Ben Barka, only Josianne Balasko seems not very convincing in an obese Marguerite Duras who was still a gorgeous woman at that time- and very touching details of that times that goes from the cramped telephone booth to vintage cigarettes boxes.

This French drama opens with the body of Georges Figon, a former crook, being discovered in a Paris apartment. It turns out Figon is to be our narrator despite his death. He tells how his death will be declared a suicide and of his part in the disappearance of Moroccan dissident Ben Barka. The action then jumps back a year and we are shown how Figon had been recruited by people saying they wanted to make a film about colonialism and that is to feature Barka as an adviser. They go on to recruit an established director and invite Barka to meet them in Paris; here he is arrested and never seen again.

When I sat down to watch this I didn't realise it was inspired by real events; this didn't affect my enjoyment of the film though. It is an effective thriller that just becomes more interesting when one learns it is based on a real mystery. The opening immediately grabbed my attention and the late Georges Figon made a fine narrator. His commentary added a touch of film noir to proceedings as well as occasional humour. The film has a real feel of the era with a slight, but not excessive, graininess and slightly faded colours reminiscent of films make in the sixties. The use of some archive footage is effective and reminds viewers of the historical context of events. The cast is solid; most notably Charles Berling and Simon Abkarian who play Figon and Barka respectively. Overall I'd definitely recommend this to anybody wanting a solid drama set in an historical context... after watching I felt both entertained and educated.

These comments are based on watching the film in French with English subtitles.

Serge Le Péron's I Saw Ben Barka Killed/J'ai vu tuer Ben Barka has Jean-Pierre Léaud playing French Forties cult director Georges Franju, and an actress called Josiane Balasko as Marguerite Duras. They're contacted by a con-artist, ex-con and would-be artist-intellectual named Georges Figon (French film everyman Charles Berling), who's been in turn contacted by mysterious others to start a project: a film about French colonialism, which will use exiled Moroccan revolutionary leader Mehdi Ben Barka (Simon Abkarian) as its historical adviser.

Figon (also a historical figure, if of less note) has no particular business being involved in such a thing, but his handlers knew he would want to: he's out for the main chance and figures to get rich and make his actress girlfriend famous by doing it. The year is 1965.

Figon meets with Ben Barka briefly in a hotel in Egypt with men he doesn't realize are intelligence agents (one of them played by Matthieu Amalric). Ben Barka agrees to work on the film.

Later Ben Barka comes to Paris to consult, but just before his first meeting is intercepted on the street along with a young Moroccan intellectual whose help he's soliciting for the project. And that's the end of Ben Barka. Later in the day Figon's there, cooperating, when Ben Barka is upstairs somewhere outside Paris being tortured; but flexible though he may be, Figon comes down too. He was only a pawn in the game.

We see actual footage of then President Charles De Gaulle at a mega-press conference denying any French government knowledge of or involvement in the wacking of Ben Barka. Shots of Figon's body in a pool of blood on the floor (neatly suited as throughout) bookend the piece. He's dead, but he narrates the movie – post-death.

The aim of this nourish fictionalization is to dot i's and cross t's on a government assassination that could be considered an important footnote on the history of French colonialism. Unfortunately the noir hints only point up J'ai vu tuer's colorless generic quality. It never comes up with explanations of the deeper motives of the events it spotlights (why Ben Barka? Why now?) or gathers much real momentum, Figon hogs the screen while remaining a colorless shill. Actor Abkarian endows Ben Barka with dignity: he's like a North African Yves Montand (one remembers Montand's aging revolutionary in Resnais' 1966 La guerre est finie). But Ben Barka is only the indirect focus of the film, a backdrop for Figon's story.

The cloudy sources of the Ben Barka assassination would certainly be of concern to students of modern French politics. But despite respectable period mounting and a nice jazz score meant to evoke Le Péron fave and French Noir great Jean-Pierre Melville, this seems from an American point of view to be a misguided project of limited interest with no precise sense of style. It appears to have been the hands-down choice for most pointless inclusion in Lincoln Center's Rendez-Vous with French Cinema Today, March 2006 edition.

(J'ai vu tuer Ben Barka opened in Paris November 2, 2005.)

This is exactly Boisset's style, though ha already evoked it in L'ATTENTAT, in the sixties. This film is very daring and rare in the French movie industry, or even TV one too. You had however some TV movies talking about RUE LAURISTON, French Gestapo in Paris; Bob Denard, the famous mercenary working for the French intelligence, or SAC, the criminal underworld connection between French government in the sixties and seventies. Back to this film, it is mostly documentary oriented, but not too didactic, only simply explained for those who don't know much about this affair which was never entirey solved. Good score all long the movie, that explains how disgusting the behind the stage government "business" can make you dizzy to live in such democracy.

"J'ai vu tuer Ben Barka" may not qualify as the masterpiece of the twenty-first century, it is nonetheless well worth seeing.

Its prime quality is its high informative value. Never so much has been said and in such precise details about the Ben Barka case as in this film. The first version, "L'attentat" by Yves Boisset was good but a bit vague and confused, but Le Péron and Saïd Smihi's present effort is as accurate as can be about the facts,protagonists (who bear their real names)and period details. It notably amazed me to learn that people connected with the French movie world had been (unwittingly) involved in this political scandal. I am a film buff but I never knew to this day (or had I forgotten?) that director Georges Franju, writer-director Marguerite Duras, actress Anne-Marie Coffinet had something to do with the abduction and elimination of the Moroccan opposition leader.

Another good point is the choice of Georges Figon as the (dead)narrator. As the man is a shady individual (nervously portrayed by fidgety Charles Berling), confusion first prevails but the story being told three times, it gets clearer and clearer as it unfurls. Costa Gavras would have chosen a white knight figure as a hero, not Serge Le Péron, whose accusatory tone is made all the sharper by apparent ambiguity.

Jean-Pierre Léaud is a stunning Georges Franju depicted as a dreamer a bit cut off from the outside world but Josiane Balasko is only fair as Duras. I personally preferred Jeanne Moreau in "Cet amour-là"

A good quality political thriller, not unworthy of its model of the seventies. Go and see it soon, for the houses which show it are far from packed.