Film: “Mr. Klein” (1978) starring Alain Delon

Paris, the City of Light, was a dark place for everyone in the 1940s, especially Jews. After the armistice with the Nazis in May 1940, Germans insisted the Nuremberg laws be promulgated in France as well. All French Jews had to register with the police, and all over the age of 6 in the Occupied Zone were required to wear a yellow star.

This ugly environment is the setting for “Mr. Klein,” the 1977 film directed by Joseph Losey and starring Alain Delon as the title character.

As the film opens, Mr. Klein, a Gentile art dealer, is haggling over the price of a painting a Jewish man (Jean Bouise) is trying to sell. “I can understand your situation,” he tells the client, faux-sympathetically, but is firm in his lowball bid.

Shortly afterward, however, Mr. Klein finds a Jewish newspaper thrust under his door. Thoroughly confounded, he checks in with the police who tell him there is another Robert Klein in Paris but won’t give away any information. Mr. Klein is determined to find the culprit who is assuming his identity.

Out of the blue, Mr. Klein receives a love letter from a woman named Florence (Jeanne Moreau, looking regal and exquisite as ever). She lives in a chateau outside of Paris and is apparently the mistress of Robert Klein. He takes the train out to meet her, only to learn she knows nothing of her lover’s whereabouts except his Paris address—where Mr. Klein lives!

Beginning to panic, Mr. Klein is advised by Pierre, his lawyer (Michael Lonsdale) to gather proof of his ancestry, including birth certificates of his parents and grandparents. The police raid his gallery, impounding millions of francs in precious artwork. Mr. Klein has the opportunity to flee the country but is so obsessed with finding Robert he loses all perspective.

“Mr. Klein” is more than a movie about stolen identity. It’s a perfect tableau of the antisemitism that was part and parcel of wartime France.

Losey does not hammer you over the head with facts however. He and his cinematographer Gerry Fisher let the visuals communicate the story through vignettes of how it really was. There’s the fat, bourgeois lady who chuckles at the stereotypical “Jud Suss” on stage at the nightclub. The degrading medical exam given to a middle-aged woman to ascertain her racial identity. And saddest of all, the Jewish families being bussed to the Vel D’Hiv stadium in Paris where they will be loaded onto boxcars and be “settled in the East.”

“Mr Klein” is the kind of 1970s minor masterpiece (see also “The Conformist”, “The Conversation” and “Thieves Like Us”) that assumed its viewers didn’t need everything dumbed down for them. And its story of bigotry is as relevant today as it was back then. Good news: so is Alain Delon. He’s alive and kicking at age 88. Salut.

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