L'avocat de la terreur (2007)

User Rating:

7.1/10   

Director:

Barbet Schroeder

Release Date:

12 October 2007 (USA)

Genre:

Documentary | Biography | History

Tagline:

Dictators. Terrorists. War Criminals. Meet the man who defended them all.

Plot:

A documentary on Jacques Vergès, the controversial lawyer and former Free French Forces guerrilla who has defending unpopular figures such as Nazi war criminal Klaus Barbie and Holocaust denier Roger Garaudy.

Plot Keywords:

Nazi | Anti Colonial | Radicalism | Khmer Rouge | Historian

Awards:

2 wins & 1 nomination

Cast

Jacques Vergès	...	Himself
rest of cast listed alphabetically:
Bassam Abu Sharif	...	Himself
Klaus Barbie	...	Himself (archive footage)
Abderrahmane Benhamida	...	Himself
Djamila Bouhared	...	Herself
Bachir Boumaâza	...	Himself
Maître Brahimi	...	Himself
Louis Caprioli	...	Himself
Carlos	...	Himself (voice)
Nuon Chea	...	Himself
Isabelle Coutant-Peyre	...	Herself
Jean-Paul Dollé	...	Himself
Zohra Drif-Bitat	...	Herself (as Zohra Drif)
Guillaume Durand	...	Himself (archive footage)
Lionel Duroy	...	Himself
Claude Faure	...	Himself
David Flinchheimer	...	Himself
Horst Franz	...	Himself
Rolande Giraud-Arnaud	...	Herself
Tep Khunal	...	Himself
Hans-Joachim Klein	...	Himself
Magdalena Kopp	...	Herself
Alain Marsaud	...	Himself
Gilles Menage	...	Himself (as Gilles Ménage)
Claude Moniquet	...	Himself
Colonel Raymond Muelle	...	Himself
Anis Naccache	...	Himself
Karim Pakradomi	...	Himself
Yacef Saadi	...	Himself (as Yacef Saâdi)
Barbet Schroeder	...	Récitant / Narrator (voice)
Oliver Schröm	...	Himself
Siné	...	Himself
Mahab Suleiman	...	Himself
Martine Tigrane	...	Herself
Patricia Tourancheau	...	Herself
Neda Vidakovic	...	Herself
Tobias Wunschik	...	Himself

Also Known As:

Terror's Advocate (USA) (new title)

Runtime:

France:135 min

Country:

France

Language:

French | German | English | Khmer

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Sound Mix:

Dolby Digital

Certification:

France:U | Switzerland:12 (canton of Geneva) | Switzerland:12 (canton of Vaud) | Canada:14A | USA:Unrated | Sweden:15 | Brazil:12

Filming Locations:

Algiers, Algeria

Company:

La Sofica Uni Etoile 3

Quotes:

Jacques Vergès: I was asked "Would you defend Hitler?" I said "I'd even defend Bush! But only if he agrees to plead guilty."

Movie Connections:

Features La battaglia di Algeri (1966)

documentaries don't get much better than this

the film begins with a credit, as stated in other reviews, that it represents the point of view of the director. the material is ambiguous but it seems to me pretty clear that Schroder respects Verges. I disagree strongly with the person who imagines it'd be more "interesting" to watch a doc about lawyers who represent people they despise and wonder what at all would be interesting about that. yes the film leaves some questions unanswered and in the interest of covering more ground on its subject does not get bogged down with some details about the role in history of some of the figures involved. this hardly means that the film was formless, incoherent, but as another reviewer mentioned the film requires the viewer to think, does not hand over conclusions wrapped up in a nice package with a bloody bow on top. It seems indisputable that Verges was a *collaborator* with those of his clients involved in "the struggle" against colonialism, whom he viewed as nothing more or less than soldiers, some honorable and some not so much. He took on the indefensible case of barbie to hold up a mirror to France's record in algeria. I don't really understand peoples' confusion about schroder's point of view of this complicated but far from unfathomable character. I appreciate that this film points the way to other viewing cf the battle of algiers.