Resistance. (15.)
Directed by Jonathan Jakubowicz.
Starring Jesse Eisenberg, Clemence Poesy, Geza Rohrig, Bella Ramsey, Matthias Schweighofer and Ed Harris. 120 mins.
A film of Marcel Marceau's wartime adventures working with the French Resistance is an intriguing proposition – just imagine the 'Allo, 'Allo episodes you could get out of that. This though, according to the framing device, is Marcel Marceau's wartime adventures as told by General Patton (Harris) to a company of allied soldiers in Nuremberg in 1945.
We first meet Marceau (Eisenberg) in Strasbourg in 1938 performing for a total indifferent cabaret crowd - surely the correct response to any mime artist. After that, we are whipped through his wartime years aiding the resistance and saving Jewish orphans. Marceau's use of clowning to keep the children focused and protected gives the story an occasional Life Is Beautiful touch, but for the most part, this is a standard tale of wartime undercover adventure. Eisenberg's Marceau is a little Woody Allen-ish in places, but effective. Schweighofer's take on Klaus Barbie is the usual evil Nazi stuff, it is chilling.
Patton calls it “an incredible story” and, in terms of not being wholly believable, particularly the climax, it is. I also kept thinking back to those soldier in Nuremberg, standing in the German night listening to Patton telling them this same story and wondering if he was giving them the same version we are watching or if he skipped the bits where two sisters giggle after one of them is caught having sex with Marceau's brother, or the bit where Barbie rows with Mrs Barbie about the noise of the tortured priests in the Hotel Terminus cellars.
Directed by Jonathan Jakubowicz.
Starring Jesse Eisenberg, Clemence Poesy, Geza Rohrig, Bella Ramsey, Matthias Schweighofer and Ed Harris. 120 mins.
A film of Marcel Marceau's wartime adventures working with the French Resistance is an intriguing proposition – just imagine the 'Allo, 'Allo episodes you could get out of that. This though, according to the framing device, is Marcel Marceau's wartime adventures as told by General Patton (Harris) to a company of allied soldiers in Nuremberg in 1945.
We first meet Marceau (Eisenberg) in Strasbourg in 1938 performing for a total indifferent cabaret crowd - surely the correct response to any mime artist. After that, we are whipped through his wartime years aiding the resistance and saving Jewish orphans. Marceau's use of clowning to keep the children focused and protected gives the story an occasional Life Is Beautiful touch, but for the most part, this is a standard tale of wartime undercover adventure. Eisenberg's Marceau is a little Woody Allen-ish in places, but effective. Schweighofer's take on Klaus Barbie is the usual evil Nazi stuff, it is chilling.
Patton calls it “an incredible story” and, in terms of not being wholly believable, particularly the climax, it is. I also kept thinking back to those soldier in Nuremberg, standing in the German night listening to Patton telling them this same story and wondering if he was giving them the same version we are watching or if he skipped the bits where two sisters giggle after one of them is caught having sex with Marceau's brother, or the bit where Barbie rows with Mrs Barbie about the noise of the tortured priests in the Hotel Terminus cellars.
