Screened as part of NZIFF 2008

Terror's Advocate 2007

L'Avocat de la terreur

Directed by Barbet Schroeder

Fascinating portrait of the enigmatic lawyer who has defended the indefensible: Klaus Barbie, Carlos the Jackal, Slobodan Milosevic and Saddam Hussain.

France In French with English subtitles
135 minutes 35mm

Director

Photography

Caroline Champetier
,
Jean-Luc Perreard

Editor

Nelly Quettier

Music

Jorge Arriagada

With

Jacques Vergès
,
Bachir Boumaza
,
Yacef Saadi
,
Djamila Bouhired
,
Maher Souleiman
,
Hans Joachim Klein
,
Neda Vidakovic
,
Magdalena Kopp

Festivals

Cannes (Un Certain Regard), Toronto, Vancouver 2007; Rotterdam 2008

Elsewhere

Jacques Vergès is the epitome of the lawyer you love to hate. Barbet Schroeder has made a comprehensive portrait of the enigmatic lawyer who has defended some of the most repugnant mass killers – Klaus Barbie (known as "The Butcher of Lyon" during his Nazi years), Carlos the Jackal, Slobodan Milosevic and Saddam Hussein among them – modern times have known. Why does Vergès play this role? And what happened to him when he completely disappeared between 1970 and 1978? The baffling questions become doubly so once you learn that Vergès was both a Communist and an anti-colonialist in his younger days. The only thing that seems consistent about his politics now is a desire to urinate all over France's high opinion of itself as the bastion of freedom, equality and fraternity. The film is based around several interviews in which Vergès comes across as loftily amused by the effects of his own outrageousness - and  yet one can see how seduced he has been by the indefensible, people who have placed themselves way, way above the law. Fascinating. — BG