I Saw Ben Barka Get Killed (J'ai vu tuer Ben Barka) (12A)

Dir: SERGE LE PERON/Saïd Smihi, 2005, France, 137 minutes, French with subtitles
Cast: Charles Berling, Simon Abkarian, Josiane Balasko, Jean-Pierre Léaud

More than any other genre, film noir relies on convoluted plots, red herrings and numerous double crosses. In I Saw Ben Barka Get Killed, French director Serge Le Peron shows us that real life can surpass even the most fantastical contrivances of fiction. In 1965, the Moroccan secret service, the CIA and the French criminal underworld, to kidnap the political activist Mehdi Ben Barka, concocted a conspiracy. Widely respected as a leader of the Third World movement for independence, Ben Barka was lured to Paris to consult with French director Georges Franju (Eyes Without A Face (1960)) on a documentary about decolonisation. The planned film – Basta! – was nothing more than bait for the man that had eluded all attempts at capture and at that time seemed set to change the world.

Central to the plot is Georges Figon, a small time crook who is shown at the beginning of the film dead in a pool of his own blood. It’s clear from the outset that this was no suicide and Figon’s voiceover details the strange series of events that led to his death. This narration from the grave provides the central line upon which all the other layers are draped, but throughout the film, Figon is shown to be an utterly unreliable source – prone to fantasy, delusion and half-truths. The audience is never asked to extend him their sympathy to him, however, and a large amount of credit should go to Charles Berling for a performance that expresses Figon’s amoral nature while still presenting him as a real human being.

While the post-mortem narration is an explicit link to Sunset Boulevard (1950), the style of the film is more reminiscent of the later French noir of Melville and Truffaut. Paris is presented like a grey prison from which Figon cannot escape and the excellent jazz soundtrack keeps a cool sense of menace running throughout. The film is not without problems, however, as the delineation between fact and fiction makes some aspects of the film unsatisfying. The straight-to-camera statements of Marguerite Duras (Balasko) that end each chapter hint at a more overt documentary structure that is never really utilised. While the use of archive footage places the story in its historical context, it’s difficult to get a sense of how much time passes between events, forcing Le Peron to insert clumsy references into the dialogue where simple on-screen captions might have sufficed.

One gets the impression that I Saw Ben Barka Get Killed is a film with more ideas than the running time allows, but that shouldn’t be held against it. In exploring the filthy underside of international politics, Le Peron has created not only a captivating thriller, but also a film of political and historical importance.

More film reviews by Tom Alexander:
NEW POLICE STORY
TENACIOUS D: THE PICK OF DESTINY

DVD Reviews:
SWINDLED

Tom Alexander