"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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Hey Mike! While the movie was released in 1976, it is set in Nazi-occupied France in 1942.
ReplyDeleteLooking forward to your review of The One I Love.
Cheers!
Thanks for pointing out my mistake. I could kick myself for making such a blunder. I've already corrected it in the body of my post. It made the post confusing for anyone who's unfamiliar with the history of France during the Second World War.
DeleteI wish more people would tell me when I make mistakes, whether they're factual errors or spelling mistakes. Sometimes I look at old posts and I find spelling mistakes that I made 10 years ago. I feel so ashamed.
Don't beat yourself up, it happens to everyone. Irren ist menschlich. 😉
DeleteI guess so, Pascal, but I still expect better of myself. I read every post at least twice after publishing it, so I don't have an excuse for making mistakes. Unless I'm tired.
Delete