Delon as the classic "individualist" who profiteers until finally the Brechtian idea of "first they came for 'x', you weren't concerned..." simply happened is a paranoiac, gloomy view of France during the war. A bit heavy-handed from the start, nevertheless is thrilling and keeps you wondering what is really happening till the end. Harder to follow than any Hitchcock or Christie, probably on purpose, as if to say: Life is not always so clear cut.Lady Moreau and Francine Bergé could have had more "character development", while beautiful leggy Juliet Berto's long figure and erratic behaviour is all we can see from Bob's fiancé. Robert is cold, intelligent, self assured, able to answer like a French writer while his house is being requisitioned by the police. Lonsdale, from many Buñuel films, gives us the eerie feeling so necessary for this film to succeed. Jugnot and Aumont deliver in their smaller roles. Suzanne Flon, from "Un crime au paradis" among others, is convincing in her obfuscated part.Gerry Fisher's cinematography and Egisto Macchi's score make this film stand apart, you've get the feeling of "really being there". In the grim and everyday aspects, not fictionalized for being palatable. mackjay from IMDb writes: "Klein's mixture of desperation and arrogance with so much conviction, it's easy to forget he is, after all, acting". C. Tashiro adds that the Nazi horrors are taken for granted, making them more real. Like J. L. Borges usually quipped: "There are no camels in the 1001 nights" meaning those involved don't notice what we, the viewers, probably would.Franco Solinas's script conveys paranoia as faced by somebody who seems never to have suffered for anything, nor anybody for that matter. Great film, but obviously, not "light viewing". Maybe a tad slow for nowadays's viewers.Gripping!!

Mr. Klein is one of the few movies I've watched because of the person that wrote it. After enjoying The Battle of Algiers, State of Siege and Queimada, I had to continue watching the movies written by the spectacular politically-minded Franco Solinas. The fact that one of my favourite directors, Costa-Gavras, did uncredited work on the script, was a major draw too. I'd never heard of Joseph Losey and although I've recently discovered the beautiful, ice-cold Alain Delon through Jean-Pierre Melville's movies, I wouldn't watch a movie just because of his good looks.So thank you Mr. Franco Solinas for a new good movie and a unique take on the Holocaust theme.Alain Delon plays Mr. Robert Klein, a normal man who deals in art. In Nazi-occupied France, his business blooms as he buys merchandise at low cost from Jews trying to escape. Since they're at a disadvantage, Mr. Klein only profits from their business relationships. He's not too concerned with what's going on. After all he's not Jewish.Then one day a Jewish newspaper appears at his door: it seems Mr. Klein is on the subscribers' list. That can't be since he's not Jewish. It seems there's another Robert Klein that got mixed up with him. He tries to sort out the misunderstanding with the police, but the other Klein has disappeared and our protagonist unwittingly becomes victim of an investigation and police harassment.Continuing to believe that everything will be sorted out – he's a good Frenchman, he claims, and believes in his country's institutions – he decides to look for the other Klein. But wherever he goes he only finds mysteries and dead ends. Why is this happening to Mr. Klein? Why is the other Klein doing this to him? Who is he? These are just some of the questions our protagonist desperately wants to answer.On the surface this is a metaphysical thriller, much in the tradition of European thrillers like Antonioni's L'Avventure, Blow-Up or The Passenger, in which facts, answers and clarity are less important than the philosophical questions that the mysteries open. Owing more to Kafka than Raymond Chandler, this is the story of how an ordinary man is caught in the bureaucratic machinery of the institutions he believes in, that replace truth with their inexorable authority. It's a prison made without walls and bars but perhaps more oppressive since it can steal even one man's identity.The ending is truly inspired, one of the finest examples of fatalism I've ever seen in a movie. Looking back, one can't help thinking the movie couldn't end in any other way. And yet it'll come as a surprise to any viewer.Franco Solinas, Joseph Losey and Alain Delon are all to commend for a heartbreaking movie.

Paris art dealer in Vichy France (Alain Delon) who has a small but significant part in the heist of European works of art finds that he is under suspicion after he begins to investigate another man with his name who has a subscription to a government sanctioned Jewish newspaper. Of course, the police have the names and addresses of all the paper's readers, and are also busy organizing for the expulsion of the entire Jewish population of Paris, many of whom are forced to sell their cherished paintings for near nothing, which are then auctioned off to eager buyers. The auctions are formal affairs, dressed up to legitimize the robbery that took place. At the same time, Delon's curiosity about this other man with his name and appearance (Robert Klein) becomes an investigation for him to prove his own identity and roots. In the midst of it all is a brilliantly and subtly portrayed decay of society, especially in a memorably filmed anti-semitic cabaret scene, where German officers mingle with the French upper middle-class, laughing along to an incredibly insulting act.

By far the most popular kind of film produced in 70s France was the policier, in which dogged detectives and po-faced policemen plodded through dour crime narratives after charismatic criminals. Generally reactionary, many featured Alain Delon, along with Jean-Paul Belmondo, France's biggest star.MONSIEUR KLEIN is a very different Delon policier. Set in Occupied Paris, its police are Gestapo stooges doggedly and po-facedly seeking out phoney Frenchmen, with one of whom Klein, Catholic, collaborationist-befriending, art-dealing war-profiteer, seems to be confused, with inevitable consequences.Losey's nausea-inducing camerawork, his use of ugly colour and shadows which literally swallows up the brightest of film-stars, the recreation of Nazi France, the playing with ideas of play, the combining of exciting thriller with Borges and Kafka, makes this one of the best films of the 70s.