Monsieur Klein (4 Stars)

"Monsieur Klein", more commonly known as "Mr. Klein", is a French film made in 1976 that stars the recently departed Alain Delon. It takes place in France in 1942, when Paris was under the control of the Vichy regime. Robert Klein is an immoral art dealer. He buys paintings from Jews who are desperate for money so they can leave the country, offering them far less than the paintings are worth. Does he have a bad conscience? No, it's just business.

Mr. Klein becomes a victim of mistaken identity. There's another man in Paris with the same name who's a Jew. Robert is horrified. How dare he be called a Jew! His dealings with Jews have warned him that persecution is upcoming, so he tries to prove that he's a good non-Jewish Frenchman. Apart from trying to find the other Robert Klein, he wants to prove his pure racial background by getting the birth certificates of his grandparents.

A small note: there's a common misconception that being Jewish is a religion, not a race. In 2022 Whoopi Goldberg was suspended from a television programme she hosted for expressing this view. It's a relatively new theory that's been invented to deny Jews the right to live in their ancestral homeland, Israel. A Jew is someone who's a descendant of Abraham via Isaac and Jacob. Their religion is Judaism, but they're still Jews if they convert to Christianity or any other religion. It's possible for a person to become Jewish by accepting the Jewish faith, but it's not common. Unlike Christianity, Judaism isn't a proselyting religion. This means that someone can be a Jew without knowing it, or even if he denies it.

That's the dilemma Robert Klein faces in the film. He claims to be a good Catholic, but there are allegations that he's a Jew. Merely saying he's not a Jew isn't enough. He has to prove it.

On first viewing, the film confused me because so much isn't explained. It's deliberately left open whether the allegations of his Jewishness are a mistake or a deliberate plot against him. Robert Klein seeks answers, but the more he searches the less he knows. Some people who know the other Robert Klein even think he's him when they see him. It's a Kafkaesque nightmare. This is a film that I need to see again.

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