Reviewed by Michael Edwards
Stars Jacques Vergs, Klaus Barbie, Abderrahmane Benhamida,
Bachie Boumaaza, Isabelle Coutant-Peyre,
Guillaume Durand, Lionel Duroy
Written by Gustin Nash
Certification UK 12A | US U
Runtime 135 minutes
Directed by Barbet Schroeder
Some of us suffered at the the hands of left-wing propagandists last week with the release of Where in the World is Osama Bin Laden? — a dumbed down, bland and uninteresting take on the war on terror from one of the increasing number of post-Michael Moore documentarists who rely more on gimmickry and style than substance. Those of you who feel my pain at these patronising propagandistic trends may well rejoice at the release of this movie which, while equally adamant in its views, treats the viewer like an intelligent adult to be engaged, convinced and cajoled into the viewpoint of the director in a way that's at once clever, interesting and uncomfortable. But what would you expect really? On the one hand we have a product of the MTV generation spawned from the popularity of Michael Moore, and on the other we have a veteran filmmaker with an eclectic career behind him.
In 'L'Advocat de la Terreur' Barbet Schroeder has created a powerhouse of a polemic on the nature of terrorism. The documentary reveals the life and work of Jacques Vergs, a former French Free Forces guerilla and controversial lawyer who defended such figures as Nazi war criminal Klaus Barbie and Holocaust denier Roger Garaudy. Whenever there was a terrorist who needed defending, be it in Algeria or Palestine, Cambodia or East Germany, Vergs would appear to defend them. He didn't win much, which is reassuring, but that isn't what this film is ultimately about.
Beneath the veneer of an exposition of one man's interesting tale is the real core of this film: terrorism is a term we take for granted. The film opens with the well-known and far from fondly remembered Khmer Rouge regime in Cambodia, this seems to be to establish the myth surrounding Vergs more than actually expound his story, before moving on to a far more detailed account of the road to Algerian independence. With this topic Schroeder uses such Algerian national heroes as Djamila Bouhired and Zohra Drif to twist our perceptions of terrorism away from the pre-packaged notion of unreasonable extremists to ordinary people pushed to the limit by oppressive Western foreign policy (or, more specifically, colonialism). Each scene depicts the freedom fighters with sensitivity to their situation, and makes sure that they are shown pronouncing profound regret that they were pushed to such actions, and to drill home the point Algerian lawyers, politicians and statesmen are filmed saying of the French elite such things as "We were dealing with idiots. They had a very limited view of the world." This from people who believe that national independence is more sacred than anything, including human life.
In each of the series of high profile cases paraded in front of us, the documentarist shows clear sympathy with the lawyer whose understanding of these 'terrorists' is that they were the natural product of corrupt colonial powers. Courtrooms became venues for showboating chastisements of the west rather than a room for 'justice': Vergs knew his was a lost cause, but was determined that it would not be a wasted one. His final statement that he would "agree to defend [George W.] Bush, but only if he pleaded guilty" to war crimes really captures the tone and message of the piece.
But, moving away from my attempted expose of the motives of this intelligent piece of documentary, this really is the story of a truly remarkable man, a man who courted controversy, fought for what he believed in, but also became corrupt and had a torrid personal life. With that foregrounded it is pretty safe to say that this film should manage to hold the attention of any politically aware human being, but a note of caution should certainly be taken in. We live in a time when terrorism is an incredibly important and sensitive topic, this isn't showboating or attention-seeking: it's a dangerous take on what it means to be a 'terrorist'. Worthy in the sense that people driven to extremes must be understood and, though it pains me to say it, empathised with, the movie goes too far in painting these killers as ordinary folk forced into a life of guerilla warfare by an oppressive, outdated and greedy colonial system of international domination. I do recommend you watch L'Advocat de la Terreur, but I recommend you do so with an enquiring and questioning mind.