Thursday, January 29, 2004
Copyright © Las Vegas Mercury

Film: Expiation-trocious

When good directors get old they make bad movies like The Statement

By Anthony Allison

May a beneficent deity or Steven Spielberg (which amounts to the same thing) save us from misbegotten, Holocaust-themed movies like The Statement.

It's hard to pity the French. But this nonthriller, about the belated manhunt for a French militia officer who collaborated with the Nazis in the June 1944 massacre of seven Jewish hostages, is dull enough to make you feel sorry for guilt-ridden Gauls--who, nearly six decades after liberation, are still atoning for the wartime sins of their grandparents under Marshall Petain's collaborationist Vichy regime.

Cinematically, the French have repeatedly explored this broad issue, in everything from The Sorrow and the Pity, Marcel OphŸls' epic 1969 documentary about a village under occupation (which Woody Allen memorably dragged Diane Keaton to see, in Annie Hall), to Louis Malle's semi-autobiographical 1987 masterpiece Au revoir, les enfants (Goodbye, Children).

But although Canadian director Norman Jewison's film is loosely based on the real-life case of Paul Touvier--who in 1994 became the first Frenchman to be convicted of war-related crimes against humanity--it fails to rekindle the coals of moral indignation. Two hours of plodding exposition and inane dialogue will leave you wishing you were Dustin Hoffman having your teeth drilled by Marathon Man's nasty Nazi Laurence Olivier. "Is it safe?" No, Larry, no.

Improbably, Michael Caine plays the duplicitous Frog who, almost five decades after D-Day, is still being pursued by shadowy assassins (who intend to leave the titular, damning document with his corpse), as well as investigative magistrate Tilda Swinton and army officer Jeremy Northam, who want to nail him by more legal means. Meanwhile, a sinister cabal of Catholic clerics continues to shelter this racist, morally repugnant murderer in the monasteries of picturesque Provence.

How Jewison recruited so many great British thespians (the stellar supporting lineup includes Charlotte Rampling, Frank Finlay, Ciarán Hinds, Edward Petherbridge, John Neville and the last big-screen appearance by Alan Bates) is a mystery. Perhaps they were attracted by the inherent gravity of the subject matter or dazzled by Jewison's track record as the Oscar-nominated director of Fiddler on the Roof and Moonstruck. Or maybe they were impressed by the reputation of screenwriter Ronald Harwood, who won an Oscar last year for The Pianist.

Though it requires an active effort by viewers to suspend disbelief, the practice of casting English actors in foreign roles is not inherently flawed. But Harwood's adaptation of the late Brian Moore's 1996 novel is peppered with such bad lines that by the final reel--when Caine says, "Quebec, Canada. That's good, they speak French there, don't they?"--your brain will explode. They shoot horses, don't they? But, of course, it would be indefensible to shoot aging filmmakers for inflicting such inanity on moviegoers.

Instead, old film folks often suffer a fate worse than death. Rather than resting on their laurels in gracious retirement, they insist on trying to prove that their creative juices are still flowing--and no one in their sycophantic entourage dares stop them. Allen used to be the most egregious example. But Norm seems intent on outdoing Woody for sheer, senescent ineptitude.

His motives in attacking the (corrupt) French establishment and the (anti-Semitic) Catholic hierarchy may, arguably, be pure. But Jewison's critical faculties are so weakened, his film's sheer dullness undermines the moral force of his argument. Instead of being a fitting memorial to the 77,000 French Jews who, a closing dedication reminds us, perished during the Nazi occupation, this stultifying Statement feels like an insult.

So if you really must wallow in the sorrow and the pity of silent complicity and active collaboration, rent a copy of Au revoir, les enfants instead. Then weep for a nation that suffered the shame of occupation, and the lingering collective guilt that can never be fully expiated.
"As far as I'm concerned, dear, this Steve Clemens character can shove this so-called lame caption up his pompous ass!"