Mr. Klein (1976) User Reviews (37)

A man and his double

[Galina_movie_fan · 8/10 · 30 March 2007]

Joseph Losey's dark moody drama of a man and his double or his shadow takes place in Paris of 1942 during the Nazi Occupation. Mr. Klein, in excellent performance by Alain Delon (if anybody ever tells you that Delon is nothing but a pretty face, NEVER believe it. Delon is a great actor with amazing screen presence who happened to be one of the most beautiful people ever lived), is a French Catholic antique dealer, successful with his business and adored by the ladies. At first, he does not care much about the occupation and the fate of Jews who had to sell their pricey pieces of Art and personal belongings for a song just to be able to leave France and to save their lives. On the contrary, he only becomes richer but everything changes when he is confused with another Robert Klein, his namesake, a wanted by the authorities' member of the underground resistance and a Jew. In the atmosphere of the total fear, bigotry, hatred, and paranoia, the "presumption of innocence" ceases to exist and Mr. Klein must prove that he is not a Jew or to face the fate of millions whose fault was to belong to the "inferior race". While trying to claim his comfortable life back, Mr. Klein begins looking for the man he never met but who by the bitter irony of fate had played such a significant role in his life. The desire to look him in the eye becomes so overwhelming that it will take Robert to where he may not be able to ever come back.

"Mr. Klein" is a complex, subtle, scary, and nightmarish film made by a very talented director who had to leave his country, the USA, in the beginning of the 50s and who knew a thing or two about paranoia and hatred multiplied by the power and turned into indifferent killing machine. Once you are inside this machine, "Abandon hope all ye who enter here". Losey's film is often described as a blend of Hitchcock's thrillers where the heroes must deal with the mistaken identity and Kafka's nightmares of "The Trial" and I agree with the description. I only want to add that the film brings to mind Edgar Poe's short story "William Wilson" which was adapted to the screen by Luis Malle as a part of the trilogy "Histoires extraordinaires" (1968) and Alain Delon played both William Wilson and the mysterious man, his double, his conscience, his dark and hidden side. "Mr. Klein" also reminds another underrated, rarely seen but very interesting Ingmar Bergman's film "The Serpent's Egg" (1977) as well as Bob Fosse's masterpiece "Cabaret". The themes of the Feast during the Time of Plague, the helplessness and distress of the terrorized members of society that face the merciless and inevitable force of history and would perish without a trace, are similar in all three movies. Despite these similarities, "Mr. Klein" is an outstanding film on its own merits. What saddens me is the fact that is little known, rarely seen and almost never mentioned even among the film buffs.

The Holocaust From A New Perspective

[Eumenides_0 · 8/10 · 14 September 2009]

Mr. Klein is one of the few movies I've watched because of the person that wrote it. After enjoying The Battle of Algiers, State of Siege and Queimada, I had to continue watching the movies written by the spectacular politically-minded Franco Solinas. The fact that one of my favourite directors, Costa-Gavras, did uncredited work on the script, was a major draw too. I'd never heard of Joseph Losey and although I've recently discovered the beautiful, ice-cold Alain Delon through Jean-Pierre Melville's movies, I wouldn't watch a movie just because of his good looks.

So thank you Mr. Franco Solinas for a new good movie and a unique take on the Holocaust theme.

Alain Delon plays Mr. Robert Klein, a normal man who deals in art. In Nazi-occupied France, his business blooms as he buys merchandise at low cost from Jews trying to escape. Since they're at a disadvantage, Mr. Klein only profits from their business relationships. He's not too concerned with what's going on. After all he's not Jewish.

Then one day a Jewish newspaper appears at his door: it seems Mr. Klein is on the subscribers' list. That can't be since he's not Jewish. It seems there's another Robert Klein that got mixed up with him. He tries to sort out the misunderstanding with the police, but the other Klein has disappeared and our protagonist unwittingly becomes victim of an investigation and police harassment.

Continuing to believe that everything will be sorted out – he's a good Frenchman, he claims, and believes in his country's institutions – he decides to look for the other Klein. But wherever he goes he only finds mysteries and dead ends. Why is this happening to Mr. Klein? Why is the other Klein doing this to him? Who is he? These are just some of the questions our protagonist desperately wants to answer.

On the surface this is a metaphysical thriller, much in the tradition of European thrillers like Antonioni's L'Avventure, Blow-Up or The Passenger, in which facts, answers and clarity are less important than the philosophical questions that the mysteries open. Owing more to Kafka than Raymond Chandler, this is the story of how an ordinary man is caught in the bureaucratic machinery of the institutions he believes in, that replace truth with their inexorable authority. It's a prison made without walls and bars but perhaps more oppressive since it can steal even one man's identity.

The ending is truly inspired, one of the finest examples of fatalism I've ever seen in a movie. Looking back, one can't help thinking the movie couldn't end in any other way. And yet it'll come as a surprise to any viewer.

Franco Solinas, Joseph Losey and Alain Delon are all to commend for a heartbreaking movie.

mistaken identity

[dromasca · 9/10 · 25 November 2021]

Somehow, I got to see only now, 45 years after its release, 'Mr. Klein', Joseph Losey's 1976 film, one of the most interesting movies about the Holocaust and Paris during the Nazi occupation. The film is produced by Alain Delon, who also plays the lead role, one of the best acting creations of his career. It is also one of the last films in the career of Joseph Losey, a remarkable American film and theater director, who spent many decades of his life in Europe, self-exiled because of his communist beliefs. He made several successful films, mostly in England in the 1960s. 'Mr. Klein', made in France, is both significant as one of the first films that addresses lucidly and critically the problematic history of French collaborationism and also fits into the themes and atmosphere of Losey's previous films with heroes who question their identity and the description of ambiguous relationships, often leaving the viewers to decide the meaning of what they see on the screen. I don't think I'm wrong in saying this is Losey's last great movie.

The story takes place in German-occupied Paris in the winter of 1942. Robert Klein (Alain Delon) is an art dealer who leads a comfortable life by taking advantage of the opportunity to buy at low prices paintings from the collections of Jews who were forbidden to practice their professions or trades and who had to sell household objects, including art, in order to survive. The ambiguity of his Alsatian name puts him in an awkward position when he is mistaken for another, Jewish, Robert Klein and begins to receive the newspaper of the Jewish community. Being a Jew in occupied Paris was more than a social stigma, and in trying to clarify the situation, Mr. Klein became entangled in the intricacies of the Petain regime's bureaucracy. The search for his alter-ego becomes a kind of police intrigue in a world that has become absurd according to the criteria of logic and legality that he had known until then. Gradually, he begins to open his eyes to the extent of the discrimination suffered by the Jews and which he had taken advantage of until then nonchalantly. Trying to prove his own 'national purity', Mr Klein starts to get closer the other Robert Klein, who had endangered, intentionally or unintentionally, his easy existence until then. The two Robert Kleins never meet but their destinies are linked.

The quality of Joseph Losey's film-making is remarkable. Paris under occupation, decadent and indifferent, in which part of the population had adopted the slogans, policies and racial legislation of the occupiers and had become complicit in persecutions and deportations denying the democratic principles of France, is brought to the screen with authenticity and carelessness. Attentive as always to detail, Losey creates various interior sets, from the hero's sophisticated apartment or residence in a castle of the probable mistress of the other Robert Klein to his rented, miserable and rat-infested house or the corridors of the police prefectures. The streets are deserted, cold, hostile and if vehicles appear they are police or Gestapo cars. Music plays an important role in two key scenes, one taking place in the castle, the other in a cabaret. The sound of the phones is as threatening as in Hitchcock's movies. Last but not least, the final scene is probably the first on-screen rendition in a feature film of the arrests and deportations of the Paris Jews from the Winter Velodrome, a historical episode kept under silence until then, which many French would have preferred to forget. Alain Delon builds his role between nonchalance and defiance, between trying to ignore realities and assuming them. Among the actors in the cast, I must also mention Jeanne Moreau and Michael Lonsdale, two formidable actors who are cast here in consistent supporting roles. The ending is debatable and was debated, open to many interpretations that have not, I think, been definitively settled by this day. IMDB mentions that Costa-Gavras also contributed to the script, although he is not listed in the credits. 'Mr. Klein' is a must-see film about occupied France and the attitude of the French towards the Holocaust, a film worth seeing, thinking about and discussing.

Delon's lost great performance,Losey's lost masterpiece.

[dbdumonteil · 10/10 · 16 July 2002]

CONTAINS SPOILERS

A doctor's office.A woman stands here in the nude.He's no longer a doctor but a vet,examining the scared patient as if she's a cow."She might belong to those inferior races.A dubious case."He mumbles to his nurse.

"Monsieur Klein" is rarely mentioned when they praise Joseph Losey.It could be his finest achievement ,the success of a work fascinated by decay,from "the gypsy and the gentleman" to "the servant".

Like the heroes of the two mentioned works,when the movie begins,Monsieur Klein (Alain Delon,whose performance is memorable,anyway it's his last great part)is a bon vivant.A bourgeois vulture who buys paintings and other works of art for next to nothing from the Jews during the Occupation in France.One day,he receives a news paper called "les informations juives".Thus he discovers he's got a namesake.At first puzzled,Klein becomes more and more involved in a search of this man ,his doppelganger,his twin,who plays cat and mouse with him.Both realist and dreamlike,not to say nightmarish,à la Kafka,and metaphysical,à la Borges ,as the precedent user wrote,Klein's quest is both mad and logical,absurd and passionate.A sublime sequence shows Delon in a crowded café :a waiter 's calling "Monsieur Klein";first he does not care because he knows "they " call the "other",but finally,he asks the waiter who tells him that the person who called "Monsieur Klein" looked just like him.Then the baffled Delon sees his reflection in a mirror.

In 1942,in Paris ,there are ominous plans.In the desert streets ,in the small early hours,French gendarmes silently move ,as if they are rehearsing for something better left unsaid.The color movie almost turns black and white in a riveting cinematographic tour de force.

Robert Klein becomes like Lewis Caroll's Alice in the well.He could avoid the fall,but he will not.His world,now that he's a suspect for the police,is collapsing.It's his turn to sell his valuable properties for a song.

In the vel' d'hiv' (winter velodrome),the roundup of Jews had begun.Klein could escape,because his lawyer found the papers that proved that "he 's got no Jewish blood in his veins",but he would like to know this other himself and he would follow him even if it were into hell.It was indeed,as the train slowly moves off,heading for the concentration camps.

A first-class work,"Monsieur Klein" leaves the audience numb and ill-at-ease.A topflight supporting cast (Suzanne Flon,Jean Bouise,Michel Lonsdale,Jeanne Moreau) shines.

Top-notch Losey, top-notch Delon

[blanche-2 · 10/10 · 4 July 2011]

Alain Delon is "Mr. Klein," a man profiting off the misfortune of French Jews during World War II in this 1976 film directed by Joseph Losey.

Robert Klein is man buying art work at severely reduced prices from desperate Jews, and for him, it's just business. When he receives a Jewish newspaper addressed to him, however, he becomes concerned, less he be suspected of being Jewish himself. His investigation leads him to another Robert Klein, who lived in reduced circumstances, supposedly resembles him, and whose new address has been given as Klein's own.

This is a fascinating film about how, in the end, we all become victims of prevailing injustice. There is a great deal of symbolism throughout; Delon's Klein becomes obsessed with the other Klein, and their lives become inextricably entangled.

After this film, you'll be left with many questions, for which there are probably several answers. Thus is the beauty of "Mr. Klein," a wonderfully directed and acted film. Delon, as an arrogant and confused man, has rarely been better. He is one actor who, due partially to a nice long life, has been able to extend his range beyond staggering good looks and play interesting, challenging characters; he is a producer of this film.

This is highly recommended and certainly a credit to the filmmaking skills of Joseph Losey as well as the taste and talent of Alain Delon.

cold

[Vincentiu · 12 March 2015]

a beautiful cold film. ice atmosphere. strange pieces. fragments from Kafka. labyrinth of a character, search of answer and a terrible end. a film like an experience and one of the most remarkable roles of Alain Delon. Mr. Klein is , in same measure, a film about certitudes, Shoach and solitude. about fear and importance of choices. about the Borges universe of appearances and strange answers. more than a good film, it is an useful one. because could be extraordinary translation of one of greatest tragedies of XX century. because it gives new dimension to the doubt. because it is a seductive image of an empty life who becomes profound different. and, sure, because it has a real good cast. see it !

Intriguing and dark story deliberately paced by Joseph Losey

[ma-cortes · 6/10 · 13 April 2010]

This is an interesting film involving a French-Catholic businessman into Kafkanian situations .January 1942, Paris , the art dealer Robert Klein is taking a lot of money because of the Nazi occupation gives him great opportunities on business buying objects and paying for less than which the valuables are worth from Jewish attempting to getaway . When a Jew newspaper appears near the door his cosy existence goes wrong. Then another Mr Klein from Jew resistance who lives hidden and wanted for anti-Nazi activities is replacing his identity , then he is mistaken for another person.

It's a complex intrigue in Frank Kafka and Hitchock style , cleverly directed by Joseph Losey. The movie is proceeded of intense manner but in slow-moving and for that reason results to be a little bit boring.This suspenseful movie is well starred by Alain Delon, the French actor most known around the world mainly for his romantic and noir films. He worked with legendary directors as Jean-Luc Godard, Jean-Pierre Melville, Luchino Visconti, and Michelangelo Antonioni.This is the second pairing Alain Delon-Losey who formerly collaborated in ¨Assassination of Trosky (1972)¨. Magnificent support cast plenty of known French actors as Jeanne Moreau,Michael Lonsdale, Suzanne Flon , Massimo Girotti and uncredited Gerard Jugnot and Michael Aumont.Confuse but original screenplay by prestigious Italian screenwriter named Franco Solinas. It contains splendid cinematography by Gerry Fisher adding adequate setting by the master Alexandre Trauner. Director Losey was originally compelled to release movies under pseudonym Victor Hansbury because he had blacklisted by Hollywood (where he shot The boy with the green hair, Prowler, Sleeping tiger, among others) during the 50s red scare . Losey exiled England where directed good films (Servant, King and Country, Accident, Romantic Englishwoman) and other European countries as France where filmed Mr Klein.

Losey's best film since THE SERVANT.

[alice liddell · 9/10 · 19 July 2000]

By far the most popular kind of film produced in 70s France was the policier, in which dogged detectives and po-faced policemen plodded through dour crime narratives after charismatic criminals. Generally reactionary, many featured Alain Delon, along with Jean-Paul Belmondo, France's biggest star.

MONSIEUR KLEIN is a very different Delon policier. Set in Occupied Paris, its police are Gestapo stooges doggedly and po-facedly seeking out phoney Frenchmen, with one of whom Klein, Catholic, collaborationist-befriending, art-dealing war-profiteer, seems to be confused, with inevitable consequences.

Losey's nausea-inducing camerawork, his use of ugly colour and shadows which literally swallows up the brightest of film-stars, the recreation of Nazi France, the playing with ideas of play, the combining of exciting thriller with Borges and Kafka, makes this one of the best films of the 70s.

Intriguing Story of Obsession with Disappointing Conclusion

[claudio_carvalho · 6/10 · 25 April 2015]

In 1942, in Paris, Mr. Robert Klein (Alain Delon) is a bon-vivant art dealer that exploits French Jews that need to raise money selling their artworks. When he receives a Jewish newspaper, he discovers that there is a homonym in Paris and he goes to the police to report the mistake. Soon Mr. Klein becomes suspect by the police that he might be Jew and he decides to carry out his own investigation but he does not find the other Mr. Klein. He needs to prove his origins to the authorities but becomes obsessed to find his double.

"Monsieur Klein" is a movie with an intriguing story of obsession, but also with a disappointing conclusion. The reconstitution of Paris in the 40's is perfect; the performances are great; but the conclusion is quite non-sense with the personality and behavior of the lead character. My vote is six.

Title (Brazil): "Mr. Klein"

Delon's icy portrayal

[RanchoTuVu · 10/10 · 28 June 2007]

Paris art dealer in Vichy France (Alain Delon) who has a small but significant part in the heist of European works of art finds that he is under suspicion after he begins to investigate another man with his name who has a subscription to a government sanctioned Jewish newspaper. Of course, the police have the names and addresses of all the paper's readers, and are also busy organizing for the expulsion of the entire Jewish population of Paris, many of whom are forced to sell their cherished paintings for near nothing, which are then auctioned off to eager buyers. The auctions are formal affairs, dressed up to legitimize the robbery that took place. At the same time, Delon's curiosity about this other man with his name and appearance (Robert Klein) becomes an investigation for him to prove his own identity and roots. In the midst of it all is a brilliantly and subtly portrayed decay of society, especially in a memorably filmed anti-semitic cabaret scene, where German officers mingle with the French upper middle-class, laughing along to an incredibly insulting act.

Did anyone ever look so good in a bowler hat?

[bowlofsoul23 · 7/10 · 4 April 2006]

As part of the Istanbul Film Festival, I just saw Monsieur Klein, a tale of a man whose story I slept through a large part of. This is not meant as disrespect to Losey or the film's star, Alain Delon. It's not easy to watch three films in one day, and the middle film often bears the brunt of my sleepiness. Here's what I didn't miss.

The film starts with an exquisite scene of a French vet (we find out later) who is examining a naked dark haired woman, measuring the length of her nostrils, whether her earlobes are attached or not, the size of her hips, and other humiliating minutiae in a cold and clinical office. The woman is then dismissed, and to top it off has to pay for the test that will "prove" whether or not she is a Jew. We then see her commiserate with her husband, who also had the same test. This clinically frightening scene is somewhat different than the rest of the film, which is less about the process of France's occupation and collaboration and more about Delon's character's inner workings. He plays a gentile art dealer named Mr. Klein who, in 1942, profits off Jews who have to unload precious goods in order to make it out of the country. He buys their works cheaply and then sells them at a high profit.

Alas, he is mistaken for a Jewish man, also named Mr. Klein, who has mysteriously disappeared. Klein's life then begins to unravel as he tries to get to the bottom of what has happened. The other Klein is all that he is not, poor, Jewish, and politically active. We expect a sea change in his character, but by the end we have to wonder if he really realizes and acknowledges the irony of the situation and the karmic retribution that is being exacted. Now that I think about it, the last scene does acknowledge that somewhat. As Klein is being swept by a crowd boarding a train headed for the concentration camps, he turns and yells at his friend who can potentially help him get out, saying- "I'll be back." If he wanted, could he have turned back? Did he want to punish himself for the role he played in others' suffering? Is he symbolic of the nation of France as a whole (with the exception of Resistance fighters), willing to turn a blind eye and thus worthy of punishment? To top it all off, the last scene in the train shows a Jew who came to Klein at the very beginning of the film and sold a valuable painting, which he collected a couple of gold coins for. The Jew is not alone, in front of him stands the blank-faced Mr. Klein.

I wasn't surprised to see that Delon was the producer, and even less surprised that this film was being shown while giving him a lifetime achievement award, because the film is all about HIM. After all, one still of the film features Delon within the David's Star, how megalomaniac is that?

I'm a Delon lover, not hater though and I don't know which is better, Delon in a bowler hat or a silk robe. He sports both. I'll choose the hat because it's more meaningful to the post at hand. The hat was reminiscent of Magritte's existential man in a bowler hat, his face obscured by a series of objects. That is the essence of the film- not the Holocaust, or the occupation, but rather the existential crisis of one man. By being confused for a Jewish man, Delon is forced to question his own existence and the choices he has made. We, however, are never totally privy to that process.

cococravescinema.blogspot.com

Mr. Klein

[CinemaSerf · 7/10 · 5 November 2023]

Alain Delon is near his best as the eponymous, rather odious, art dealer quite happily fleecing the terrified Jewish community of their precious possessions at cut race prices as they make preparations to try and flee the Nazi occupation of Paris. It's when one such victim is leaving his elegant apartment one day that "Klein" notices a Jewish newspaper at his door - with his name on it! He goes to the police to make it clear that he is not the "Robert Klein" on the address, but do they believe him? Do they think that perhaps he is trying to pull the wool over their eyes too? He concludes that the only way he can be certain is to track down the real doppelgänger before he ends up suffering the same dispossession and deportation as those he had thus far all too readily exploited. One can never have enough of Jeanne Moreau and her role as the enigmatic "Florence" is a little undercooked here, but as the rest of this complex thriller builds up steam we see Joseph Losey using Delon, and our own appreciation of just how terrifying it must have been for most during the occupation let alone the Jewish population, as weapons to potently reveal that terror and to ultimately maybe even humanise - as well as, perhaps, ridicule - this most venal and shallow of men. Is he now the hunted? Can he escape with his life? The more he thinks he has swum away from danger, the more the maelstrom seems to embrace him - and that catch 22 scenario is enthralling to watch play out here. It's cleverly photographed with a score that augments our own - and his - sense of increasing peril and frustration and though it's perhaps just a little slow at the start, it turns into a cracker.

I just don't seem to be of the same opinion of most of the rest of the reviews on this one.

[planktonrules · 4/10 · 4 May 2012]

Alain Delon plays the title character. He's an oddly happy man. While his country is occupied by the Nazis, he's very content. He makes a career out of buying and selling art from Jews who have no choice but to sell--and he's a sleazy profiteer. He also has a mistress and has everything he wants. However, when another Mr. Klein tries to convince authorities that the sleazy Klein is a Jew, his ordered and happy life starts to crumble. And, Klein knows he needs to expose the real Jewish Klein or he could be branded a Jew and lose everything...including his life.

I noticed that the reviews for "Mr. Klein" are very, very favorable. So favorable that I stared to wonder why I disliked the film so much as I watched the film--as I was really expecting to like it. As I pondered, I thought the problem was NOT the plot. The story idea was pretty interesting. However, the way the story was told was so incredibly dull, as it's way underplayed throughout--making what should be a great story amazingly lifeless. As a result, much of the impact of the film was lost on me. I just can't see what the others saw in this film and there are certainly MANY films that deal with the Holocaust era better than this.

Mr. Klein approach the bleak time at occupied Paris by Nazi-forces and the havoc at Jewish community !!!

[elo-equipamentos · 9/10 · 23 January 2021]

Here with scarce votes and just two dozens reviews, I was jolted by so lowest numbers, Joseph Losey made a beguiling movie surround by mysterious events on Kafkaesque fingerprints all over, the picture takes place in a bleak time at occupied Paris by Nazi-forces in 1942 Mr. Klein (Alain Delon) a thoroughbred bon vivant art dealer who handle as black vulture devouring the distraught Jews that came to him to sell their pieces of art in order to escape to foreign parts, then came up the unexpected, Monsieur Klein now was mistaken by a Jew namesake, henceforth his easy life turns upside down, he tracks down his wrongdoer unflaggingly thru the Paris, receiving strange letter that seemingly goes to nowhere, on his chase an empty room at decaying neighborhood shall be the answer, there he finds some sizeable clues as photo and an odd sheet music, nonetheless the time is running out, the worry Mr. Klein with the police at his neck, he ought proves that his family's roots are France's purebred, rarest picture indeed, approaching the atrocious Holocaust and their havoc at Jewish community on Europe, while in sluggish pace, but never boring, plus letting the eager viewer mesmerized on the screen, the outcome is apotheotic and was enforced by personal reasons, worthwhile the two hours of pure magic!!

Thanks for reading.

Resume:

First watch: 2021 / How many: 1 / Source: DVD / Rating: 9

A very good film with a serious topic and a stunning Alain Delon

[floydianer · 10/10 · 15 November 2005]

The French don't like talking about what happened in France in the Second World War when they are blamed of collaborating with the Nazis. This particular movie does not try to make history seem nicer than it was. Hats off to the producers, one of them Alain Delon himself, for bringing this serious topic to the screen.

Apart from the historical background this is also a very suspenseful, well-written thriller with barely any lost minutes or boring scenes. There's no need to go through the content exactly again now, but it sure is an unusual and interesting one. The fight for your own identity. Mr Klein, an antiques seller who profits from sales of Jews who are in danger and want of money, finds out there's someone in Paris who's also called Robert Klein. As this Mr Klein is, as he suspects, a Jew he tries everything to find the one who steals his "safe identity".

The director, Joseph Losey, presents us a very atmospheric picture of Paris 1942. The actors are all good, but the star is of course Alain Delon. Delon gives what is probably among his greatest character roles ever and he completely disappears into the demanding role. The screenplay is consistently fine and never has any missteps, including a dramatic and very touching final. A French film gem from the Seventies, watch it now!

a kind of page from Kafka

[Kirpianuscus · 26 September 2015]

a strange script. fascinating cast. a not comfortable story. a man out from its gray life, a confusion, a verdict and the search of the answer. and the last decision. it could be a page from Kafka. or only episode from Calvino/Borges work. it could be a war episode. in fact, it is a seductive parable about the truth and its dark shadow. Alain Delon does one of his greatest roles and that remains, after decades, one of the basic virtues of this question-film. because it is one of films who propose only a question. about every day life, about the other, about the security who seems be out of debates, about curiosity and about fear. and, sure, about accidents who becomes destiny. short, a film who must see. for the status of challenge. for the meeting of a different Joseph K. from the Trial.

The Discreet Charm of Incipient Totalitarianism

[jcnsoflorida · 7/10 · 17 January 2014]

I always assumed director Joseph Losey was British (he was a blacklisted American). To further confuse matters (and me) 'Mr. Klein' is in French and it offers a profound and disturbing glimpse into 1942 France, sliding into semi-totalitarianism. Not a pretty picture; rather a blandly terrifying or terrifyingly bland one. The film is frequently and aptly described as Kafkaesque. It raises questions that it deliberately does not answer. Another reviewer pointed out thematic similarities to Bergman's 'The Serpent's Egg'. I agree, and both are very good. To be honest, I need to see 'Mr. Klein' again but it is upsetting enough that I have to defer that awhile. And probably after another viewing I'll still be confused. Delon at 41 is beginning to lose his looks in this but it's an excellent performance. Recommended though somber and not easy.

A magnetic masterpiece with a mysterious role.

[thierryz · 10/10 · 10 March 2003]

Mr. Klein is a magnetic masterpiece,it has the characteristics of a Film Noir although it's not a detective movie.It deals in a subtile way but irritating with one of the main traumas in the human Era suffered in the 20th century - The Holocaust. The plot seems to be ordinary and straight forward but in the background we have many clues that what seems to be is not what there is. Joseph Losey made here a genious work of directing,creating a mysterious movie with even more mysterious double character of Mr. Klein - one in the shade and one very well performed by Alain Delon.

A Mild Absurdity

[gavin6942 · 7/10 · 6 November 2017]

Robert Klein cannot find any fault with the state of affairs in German-occupied France. He has a well-furnished flat, a mistress, and business is booming. Jews facing discrimination because of laws edicted by the French government are desperate to sell valuable works of art - and it is easy for him to get them at bargain prices. His cozy life is disrupted when he realizes that there is another Robert Klein in Paris - a Jew with a rather mysterious behavior.

Although Wisconsin-born director Joseph Losey integrates historical elements (such as the infamous Vel' d'Hiv Roundup) into the film, it is more than a reconstruction of the life and status of the Jews under the Vichy regime. The relationship of the film with the works of the writer Franz Kafka has often been noted.

The Kafka connection is what makes the film so enjoyable. The story on its own is good, though Klein comes off as a smug fool. Once his life enters the Kafkaesque pointless journey, it gets interesting. We may or may not feel sorry for him (he is not a sympathetic character), but we are interested to see where the mystery goes.

Mr. Klein's choice

[steven-222 · 10/10 · 27 April 2011]

Exquisite, excruciating existential thriller from director Joseph Losey. (Spoilers follow.)

On the simplest level, Mr. Klein is a story of mistaken identity and a powerful indictment of fascism...but it is much more than that. The abiding mystery here is the relationship between a man of mediocre virtue and his doppelganger, who appears to be everything Mr. Klein is not. Mr. Klein at first fears his double, then becomes fascinated by him, then comes to deeply admire him. At the end of the movie, the comfortable bourgeois Paris of Mr. Klein has become a moral cinder, utterly corrupt, and Klein--who only moments before declared, "This has nothing to do with me!"--chooses to follow his double into the boxcar of death.

On the level of surface story, this is a paranoid thriller with a gloomy ending; on the level of fable, it is a story of self-discovery and transcendence, as the two Mr. Kleins, who never meet, nonetheless merge. The best Losey films gives us more than we bargained for and take us to places we did not expect, and this is one of his best and most complex movies.

Instant karma, Kafka style

[gbill-74877 · 7/10 · 4 December 2022]

Mr. Klein is a rather eerie exploration into the French national guilt for their treatment of Jews during the occupation and Vichy government. Early on we see a couple of ugly examples; in the first, a doctor measures physical characteristics of a Jewish woman as if she were an animal, with her naked and demeaned in every sense, and in the second, a nobleman (Alain Delon, playing the title character) bargains unfairly with a Jewish man desperately trying to raise money by selling a Dutch painting. Later there are other examples, such as the wealthy laughing at a stereotypical Jewish character in a stage performance, and a haunting depiction of the Vel' d'Hiv Roundup, the mass arrest of thousands of Jewish people by the French police, complicit with the Nazis, for shipment to Auschwitz.

So there is a processing of shame taking place here, something which in and of itself merits credit. What makes the film intriguing is Mr. Klein getting mixed up with a Jewish character of the same name, and sensing the danger in that, trying to track the other man down. The nightmare which follows feels like instant karma, Kafka style, as he can never quite get hold of the full situation, or his full family records to prove his own Catholic lineage. At one point in Mr. Klein's quest, he runs into his double's lover, played by Jeanne Moreau (who I wish we had seen more of). At another he starts believing that his double, a member of the Jewish Resistance, is deliberately trying to frame him, but the police have their doubts. In a bitter irony, soon he's the one seeking false papers to flee the country.

We certainly shouldn't feel more for this character than the Jews in danger for their lives, since he's preyed on them and is rather unlikeable. Perhaps he represents France losing its national identity (or its way) in some sense during this ugly period, or perhaps through him we're meant to see how arbitrary, senseless, and dehumanizing it all was. Measurements with calipers of facial dimensions to determine "Semitic" characteristics, or not having one's full set of records from one's grandparents is enough to doom a person, while others go about their lives, continuing to eat well and going to parties. It's all madness, though I'm not sure I needed this character to see that.

What stopped me from truly loving the film was its storytelling, which is often too ponderous and rather opaque. Its slow pace I suppose is in keeping with Mr. Klein's nightmarish descent, but I think it would have been more effective at 90 minutes instead of 123. While the main gist of the story is understandable, details in scenes are sometimes unnecessarily confusing. However, it kept me engaged, wondering what would happen, and it ended strong. Last note - how ironic is it that this film was also produced by Delon, who would later align himself with the far-right (and anti-Semitic) National Front in France?

Quietly devastating

[lisbethinsydney · 10/10 · 3 July 2022]

My mother took me to see this film when it first came out and, of all the European films we saw in the 70s, this is one that stayed with me. So when it was rereleased, I bought the Joseph Losey collection on DVD mainly to see Mr Klein again. Alain Delon was thought of as just a pretty boy until this film. Intriguing, unnerving, Mr Klein is a perfect existential tale of the banality of evil, centred on an event in June 1942 that the French would rather forget. One of the best films made about The Holocaust, in my opinion. It shows how easily such horrors can happen in a supposedly civilised society.

I Know that I am in the Minority

[levybob · 4/10 · 18 December 2019]

I know that I am in the minority but I found this film (1) impossible to understand and (2) all but impossible to sit through. I will not bore you with detailing the film's plot, because other reviewers have already done it and likely done it better than I could.

What I can say is this. I saw the film in its 2019 re-release. I saw it with people who are, in my opinion, film-smart, and not one of us had a clear understanding of what happened up there on the screen. And to me - regardless of whether or not 'confusion' is the actual point of the film - this says that the film simply doesn't work.

I read reviews of the film in its 1976 release and read reviews of its re-release. And having done so it is clear that paid-reviewers are paid because they can find detail, can piece the detail together into a theory, that the normal movie reviewer (such as me) simply cannot. And since my belief is that most of you are unsalaried movie-goers I'll simply say this.

Miss it.

Into the abyss.

[stuka24 · 8/10 · 27 January 2011]

Delon as the classic "individualist" who profiteers until finally the Brechtian idea of "first they came for 'x', you weren't concerned..." simply happened is a paranoiac, gloomy view of France during the war. A bit heavy-handed from the start, nevertheless is thrilling and keeps you wondering what is really happening till the end. Harder to follow than any Hitchcock or Christie, probably on purpose, as if to say: Life is not always so clear cut.

Lady Moreau and Francine Bergé could have had more "character development", while beautiful leggy Juliet Berto's long figure and erratic behaviour is all we can see from Bob's fiancé. Robert is cold, intelligent, self assured, able to answer like a French writer while his house is being requisitioned by the police. Lonsdale, from many Buñuel films, gives us the eerie feeling so necessary for this film to succeed. Jugnot and Aumont deliver in their smaller roles. Suzanne Flon, from "Un crime au paradis" among others, is convincing in her obfuscated part.

Gerry Fisher's cinematography and Egisto Macchi's score make this film stand apart, you've get the feeling of "really being there". In the grim and everyday aspects, not fictionalized for being palatable. mackjay from IMDb writes: "Klein's mixture of desperation and arrogance with so much conviction, it's easy to forget he is, after all, acting". C. Tashiro adds that the Nazi horrors are taken for granted, making them more real. Like J. L. Borges usually quipped: "There are no camels in the 1001 nights" meaning those involved don't notice what we, the viewers, probably would.

Franco Solinas's script conveys paranoia as faced by somebody who seems never to have suffered for anything, nor anybody for that matter.

Great film, but obviously, not "light viewing". Maybe a tad slow for nowadays's viewers.

Gripping!!