150 Word Review: 'Mr. Klein' (1976)
Tied in Nazis
First, they come for religious minorities, then political opponents and intellectuals. And, eventually, they turn on collaborators, because everyone is a scapegoat to a fascist. Alain Delon is seductive, almost serpentine, as Robert Klein, a louche art dealer in Nazi-occupied Paris who lowballs terrified Jews selling beloved paintings for fast cash. Klein is indifferent to their plight, as are most of his decadent Parisian friends. And then, one day, he’s mistaken for a Jewish man.
What happens next is part paranoid mystery—not a whodunit but a who-is-Mr. Klein?—part Kafka-esque bureaucratic horror. Mr. Klein savages the Vichy government that colluded with the Germans; there are people who will turn a blind eye to atrocities so long as the champagne flows. Delon is extraordinary as a shallow libertine who watches his life slowly disappear before his eyes. Director Joseph Losey is unsentimental and sober, his Paris a chilly maze of sophisticated two-faces.