Review: I Saw Ben Barka Get Killed

UK Release: 20th October 2006

The mysterious fate of Moroccan activist Mehdi Ben Barka, who was kidnapped in 1965, has already informed Yves Boisset’s 1972 thriller The Assassination. In this historical drama, Serge Le Péron is less concerned with his disappearance and the attendant world of espionage than the Left Bank scene in mid-1960s Paris, where opportunistic ex-con Georges Figon (Charles Berling) seeks to make his name as a film producer in collaboration with screenwriter Marguerite Duras (Josiane Balasko) and director Georges Franju (Jean-Pierre Léaud).

Atmosphere is everything here, as Le Péron draws on the noirish precedents of Jean-Pierre Melville to create political, criminal and artistic milieux that are contrastingly sinister, scurrilous and self-servingly pretentious. But he does speculate intriguingly about Figon’s relationship with Ben Barka and its consequences for a nation teetering on the brink of implosion.

Radio Times rating:

****

UK cinema certificate 12A
Running time 102mins

Review by David Parkinson

News: Simon Abkarian

If all goes well, the actor playing the titular deceased character in this week’s French flick I Saw Ben Barda Get Killed could be set to follow in the footsteps of fellow countrymen Jean Reno and Gerard Depardieu and make the leap into bigger-budget English-language movies. The 44-year-old has been working insanely hard over the last few years, and has just had his first English-language role in the biggest film of next month – the new James Bond movie Casino Royale. His part may be fairly small – he’s only a henchman – but will nonetheless almost certainly increase his profile enough to open up fresh opportunities.