I saw the murder of Ben Barka
| Movie | |
|---|---|
| German title | I saw the murder of Ben Barka |
| Original title | J'ai vu tuer Ben Barka |
| Country of production | France , Morocco |
| original language | French |
| Publishing year | 2005 |
| length | 98 minutes |
| Rod | |
| Director | Serge Le Péron |
| script |
|
| production | Gilles Sandoz |
| music |
|
| camera | Christophe Pollock |
| cut | Janice Jones |
| occupation | |
| |
I saw the murder of Ben Barka (original title: J'ai vu tuer Ben Barka ) is a French-Moroccan film by Serge Le Péron from 2005. The film is based on the real events surrounding the kidnapping and murder of the Moroccan opposition leader Ben Barka in France in 1965. The plot is told from the perspective of one of the key characters in the criminal, legal and political affair: Georges Figon.
action
Georges Figon was imprisoned for a few years, but now, in Paris in 1965, he is the editor of magazines for the Presses Européennes . His dealings include intellectuals from the Rive Gauche , namely Marguerite Duras, and actors such as his girlfriend Anne-Marie Coffinet. However, he still socializes with people from the criminal milieu.
He meets some of them in the house of a certain Georges Boucheseiche. You provoke him - has he got tired? - and then tell, without giving details, of a matter for which the Moroccan secret service is looking for someone with contact to the scene on the Rive Gauche. And don't worry: the matter is covered by the French, from the very top. From this moment on, the story, in which Figon gets into it less from criminal energy and more from obesity and naivety, takes its course.
Soon after, Figon is contacted by the Moroccan Chtouki, as it turns out, a secret service man, but now it's about a film project. For a documentary on the subject of decolonization, he, Chtouki, is looking for a producer who will also act as a middleman between French filmmakers and the Moroccan opposition leader Ben Barka, who lives in exile. The journalist Philippe Bernier, a man who Ben Barkas trusts, should be there as an advisor, Marguerite Duras should write the commentary and Georges Franju should direct the film. Everything sounds credible and acceptable to Figon, but actually he suspects or knows from the start that something is wrong with the matter.
Figon and Bernier fly to Cairo and talk to Ben Barka about the film project. Ben Barka then made another phone call to Franju that he was actually available as a director. When Franju confirms it - yes, and there is already a title: Basta! -, Ben Barka announces his arrival in Paris for the end of October.
October 29, 1965, Paris, Brasserie Lipp. When Ben Barka arrives for the agreed work meeting with Figon, Bernier and Franju, he is intercepted by two French police officers and pushed into a car, which then drives off quickly. Boucheseiche's men are also there, and so is Chtouki. Figon is watching the scene from inside the brasserie and is not very surprised by what he has seen.
After the kidnapping, everyone turns away from Figon, the Boucheseiche crooks as well as Marguerite Duras and Georges Franju. Only his girlfriend Anne-Marie Coffinet is still with him. Figon tries to get at least financial capital out of the thing. He sells his version of the story to L'Express magazine , which appears under the title J'ai vu tuer Ben Barka . This makes him the target of crooks like the secret services, who fear that he might spill more. A little later, Georges Figon is found dead in his rented room. Suicide? Murder?
In the last part of the film, the events are told again in a flashback immediately after the kidnapping. Here the political dimension of the Ben Barka affair comes to the fore.
criticism
Jean-Luc Douin, in Le Monde of November 1, 2005: “Le Péron is turning its back on what was called 'left fiction' in the 1970s (films denouncing the tricks of commercial cinema), with an unusual tone to post. I saw the murder of Ben Barka is a film noir , an homage to the cinema by Jean-Pierre Melville , a description of an icy cold and claustrophobic Paris. ... Above all, it is the game by Charles Berling that catapults the film into an indefinable realm between feverish mythomania and suicidal loss of control. Played with a mixture of talkativeness and pathological nervousness, Figon panics, unpacks at Express and is found dead in his studio. Became uncontrollable, put out of the way. "
Pierre Vermeeren, in No. 2006/2 of the Presses de Sciences Po , first recognizes Le Péron's decision to focus on the figure of Georges Figon. Still, the film doesn't go far enough politically for him. He writes: “The film points to the involvement of Gaullist personalities in the affair that existed alongside Figon, but nothing is said about de Gaulle himself, including his violent anger when he found out about the affair other than that The fact that he described the French involvement in the matter as 'vulgar and insignificant'. Who in France wanted to silence Ben Barka and why? "
Web links
- I saw the murder of Ben Barka in the Internet Movie Database (English)
- A detailed description of the chronology and the main participants in the Ben Barka affair can be found in the French Wikipedia wikipedia.fr .
- Lots of background information, including quotes from Le Péron, in the French online magazine allocine.fr : That the idea for the film came about when the screenwriter Frédérique Moreau had a conversation with Georges Franju shortly before his death, in which he spoke of told of his persistent disturbance of having unknowingly participated in the plot at the time; that some of the filming took place on the original locations - inside the Brasserie Lipp, in the studio on rue des Renaudes, where Figon hid during the last weeks of his life, and in the Boucheseiches house in Fontenay-le-Vicomte, where Ben Barka was believed to have been murdered.
Individual evidence
- ↑ Le Monde , November 1, 2005. (“Le Péron tourne le dos à ce que l'on a appelé dans les années 1970 les 'fictions de gauche' (films de dénonciation utilisant les ficelles du cinéma), pour adopter un ton décalé. J'ai vu tuer Ben Barka est un film noir, homage au cinéma de Jean-Pierre Melville, description d'un Paris glacial et claustrophobique.… C'est d'abord le jeu de Charles Berling qui catapulte le film dans une zone indécise, entre la mythomanie fiévreuse et la perte de contrôle suicidaire. Interprété avec un mélange de faconde et de nervosité pathologique, Figon panique, crache le morceau dans L'Express , puis est retrouvé mort dans son studio. Incontrôlable, éliminé. ")
- ^ Presses de Sciences Po , No. 2006/2. (“Le film suggère la collaboration à l'affaire, aux côtés de Figon, de personnalités gaullistes, mais rien n'est dit sur de Gaulle - ni sur sa violente colère quand il apprend l'affaire-, hormis le fait qu'il déclare la participation française à cette affaire 'vulgaire et subalterne'. Qui désirait en France faire taire Ben Barka, et pourquoi? ")