Special Section

A film about a court set up in occupied France. Paris, 1941. A young member of the resistance kills a German officer at a metro station. The Germans demand reprisals. The Vichy government produces a solution of its own: a special court will be created, and men already convicted of other offences and serving their sentences will be retried and executed. So the point is not to find the culprit. The punishment is decided first and the defendant chosen afterwards. What the film is interested in is that inversion and the lawyers who signed off on it. The narrative takes place in government rooms and courtrooms. There are almost no Germans on screen; everyone making the decision is French. Costa-Gavras directed; the source is Hervé Villeré's documented book. Michael Lonsdale and Louis Seigner are in the cast. The film caused discomfort in France because it tells the occupation not as a story of external pressure but as one of internal collaboration. A hard example for anyone who likes political cinema and courtroom narratives. For a viewer expecting action, the film consists almost entirely of meetings and hearings.