Mr Klein (1976)
A few years ago I met up with the noted French film buff Ginette Vincendeau. Conversation turned to what was essentially a complicity by the Vichy Government with the occupying Nazis leading to the infamous round up (Le rafle) of the Parisien Jews In 1942.
Some of the French police officers in Le Melice were not brought to justice but like Maurice Papon served in the post war Gaullist government.
Ginette directed me to this Joseph Losey film on the round-up and I made a mental note to see it.
Last week I watched the always excellent Sky Arts film profiles – this one on on Alain Delon, who not only starred in the film but produced it.
I obtained a box set of Losey films as I wanted to see Accident and The Servant again and he is one of my favorite directors, best known for The Go Between.
The story line is Hitchcockian for its use of confused identity.
Robert Klein (Alain Delon) is an amoral art dealer whose name is the the same as a Jew the Melice are interested in.
In error Klein receives a Jewish publication whilst buying an art work from a Jew anxious to sell it. The Jew is unimpressed that Mr Klein should be perplexed to receive the publication in error. Klein investigates further, he even goes to the police and gets his lawyer on the case (Michael Londsdale, who played Inspector Lebel in the Day of the Jackal).
Klein digs his own hole as everyone including his mistress believes they are one and the same. He is eventually rounded up and deposited in the Drancy camp for onward railroad transmission to the camps.
I came across this sordid tale in the 1990s when a good friend of mine stationed in Paris for Reuters referred to an article in Nouvel Observateur which revealed that the Nazis did not want any child under 6 taken in the round-up sent to the camps as they could not work.
The separation of the children from their parents in the camp with their pathetic suitcases of what they could grab was one of the most moving in the film. However the French did still send some 5000 children to their death and then covered it up.
The film, despite its impact, is not without flaws. There are some odd coincidences: Klein, in escaping from the Paris by train, shares a carriage with a woman who is the lover of the other Klein.
The other Klein has numerous lovers but as one is Jeanne Moreau we will forgive his philandering.
On the train to the camp Klein has behind him the seller whose picture he bought. There are very short shots, for example, of the construction of the interment camp or a board meeting which you do not understand.
This is very much a Losey technique who likes to confused the viewer.
Alain Delon in the lead role shows he is more than a handsome face in a measured and convincing performance. Many times I thought what if it happened here. We have indeed much to thank Winston Churchill for.
