The Assassination

Darien is a left-wing journalist who also informs for the police, which makes him open to blackmail. He is made to bring his old friend Sadiel to Paris, on the pretext of a television programme about the Third World. Sadiel is the exiled opposition leader of a North African country, and his country's secret service wants him. The moment Sadiel lands in Paris he is put into a car in the middle of the street. Darien understands what he has done right then. He tries to undo it, but the French police, the intelligence services and the politicians are all in it. Yves Boisset directs; the film draws on the case of Mehdi Ben Barka, the Moroccan opposition figure abducted in Paris in 1965 and never found. Jean-Louis Trintignant plays Darien and Gian Maria Volonté plays Sadiel. Two hours and three minutes. The music is by Ennio Morricone. During production filming permits were refused, the financing was cut off three times, and the negatives of some scenes disappeared.