the audience applauded

Powerful

Don't listen to the negative reviews

Absolutely the worst movie.

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.

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.

This is a very interesting way to approach the Holocaust -- a portrait of a life, fairly slow to get its rhythms (at its worst, Losey directs the film in a stale manner), told ostensibly as a mystery, with truths about the Holocaust (that come into effect at the end of the film) and how the daily routine of it felt for an observer. It's a brutal revenge story (we know that Klein is being punished for making money off the deaths of others from the beginning), but also an allegory for the self-loathing Jew who, in this case, runs toward his death, aware that it's coming and trying to avoid it but actually walking right into it, a nasty bit of determinism.The beginning of the film has a title that suggests this film is about not a person but a phenomenon -- a composite of various people -- but just what phenomenon are they talking about? Art dealers during the Nazi occupation? That could be, but how many of them had their identity essentially stolen from them? I think the phenomenon they're referring to has more to do with that allegory than it does with the literal happenings of the film. But what's so impressive about the film is that the literal happenings are taken very seriously.Delon's performance here, as per usual in his later years, is very good and very subtle. He's not a ruthless man, and there's a very interesting balance he pulls off between being annoyed at his police troubles and trying not to offend anyone, especially the Jews, as he tries desperately to get off their newspaper mailing list. Of course there is no grandstanding, and his aging beauty gives him a perpetually over-tired face, a pretty boy whose looks are slowly deteriorating. He must have been aware of that, as his worn face matches the dull, rainy Paris landscape in the film. 8/10

CONTAINS SPOILERSA 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.