Monsieur Klein

1976 French film

Monsieur Klein is a 1976 mystery drama film directed by Joseph Losey, produced by and starring Alain Delon in the title role. Set in Vichy France, the Kafkaesque narrative follows an apparently Gentile Parisian art dealer who is seemingly mistaken for a Jewish man of the same name and targeted in the Holocaust, unable to prove his identity. The film is a French and Italian co production, and won three César Awards; Best Film, Best Director (Joseph Losey), and Best Production Design (Alexandre Trauner). Alain Delon was nominated for Best Actor.

Paris, January 1942. France is occupied by the Nazis. Robert Klein, apparently apolitical and amoral, is a well to do art dealer, Roman Catholic and Alsatian by birth, who takes advantage of French Jews who need to sell artworks to raise cash to leave the country. One day, the local Jewish newspaper, addressed to him, is delivered to his home. He learns that another Robert Klein who has been living in Paris, a Jew sought by police, has had his own mail forwarded to him in an apparent attempt to destroy his social reputation and make him a target of official anti Semitism. He reports this to the police, who remain suspicious he may be reporting this scheme to disguise his own true identity. His own investigations lead him in contradictory directions, to Klein who lives in a slum while having an affair with his concierge and to Klein who visits a palatial country estate where he has seduced an apparently Jewish married woman. When the art dealer cannot locate the other Klein, authorities require him to offer proof of his French non Jewish ancestry. While waiting for the documentation to arrive, he struggles to track down his namesake and learn his motivation. Before he can resolve the situation by either means, he is caught up in the July 1942 roundup of Parisian Jews. The film offers no clear resolution of its contradictory evidence and blind alleys. It ends as he is reunited with Jews who once were his clients as they board boxcars for Auschwitz.

Although Losey integrates historical elements (such as the infamous Vel' d'Hiv Roundup) into the film, it is more than a reconstruction of the life and status of the Jews under the Vichy regime. The relationship of the film with the works of the writer Franz Kafka has often been noted, for example: The Metamorphosis, telling of the brutal and sudden transformation of a man into an insect; The Castle, which describes a search for one's own identity by way of getting to know "the other"; The Trial, which sees an accused man become an outlaw of society. According to Vincent Canby, the filmmakers "are not as interested in the workings of the plot as in matters of identity and obsession".

The film has an approval rating of 100% on Rotten Tomatoes based on 16 reviews.

A restored version was released by Rialto Pictures in 2019.