(Les Patriotes)
(French Espionage Thriller)
Cannes Film Festival 1994 (In Competition)–In his third and most accessible feature, The Patriots, rising French filmmaker Eric Rochant continues to explore the themes of political commitment and personal integrity, this time around situating the above issues in Israel’s intriguing world of espionage.
Patriots | |
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Grade: B- (*** out of *****)
Large-scale, big-budgeted production aspires to belong to the thrilling milieu of John le Carre, but its rather conventional ideas and uneven execution make it just a sprawling, intermittently absorbing, movie.
Opening in France June 1, the picture is likely to fly high in Europe, and its international cast signals some commercial potential offshore, where Rochant is virtually unknown.
With the demise of the Cold War, declining force of communism, and changing realities of Eastern Europe, the Middle East seems to be a natural, still largely unexplored, backdrop for new espionage movies. Yvan Attal, Rochant’s favorite actor, stars as Ariel, a young French Jew whose need for a more meaningful identity motivates him to leave his family and volunteers for work in the Mossad, Israel’s venerated Institute for Intelligence.
Adventure begins in Tel-Aviv in 1983, when Attal’s car breaks and he and another man are arrested and brutally treated by the Israeli police. A flashback quickly establishes that Attal had left his country 4 years earlier, at his eighteenth birthday.
Initial hour follows Attal as he’s recruited to Unit 238, one of the organization’s toughest, and is trained in all its necessary procedures by Yossi (Yossi Banai), who in the process becomes his surrogate father. His first mission, involving a French atomic scientist, presents no problems of conscience, as its goal is to protect Israel against a nuclear disaster.
In the second mission, however, which is set in 1987, Attal gets to work with Pelman (Richard Masur), a Jewish-American agent, who’s married to a Gentile (Nancy Allen) and provides Israel with vital info for its survival. It’s in this section, that the tale gets more nuanced, the ambience scarier, and the tension between what matters personally and politically more overtly pronounced.
As writer, Rochant understands that, in order to be seductive, spy stories need to revolve around power games and issues of manipulation. And for a while, particularly in the second part, his movie shows the nasty, foul work conducted by intelligent officers in the name of absolute ideals.
One suspects that larger issues are on the writer’s mind, like the price a person is willing to pay to gain desirable group membership, or the conflict between the dictates of national service and moral integrity. But Rochant seems unable to decide whether his pic should be a tightly-knit suspense-thriller or a personal chronicle of a young man whose initial idealism undergoes maturation and disillusionment; pic is framed with voice-over narration, mostly letters that Attal writes to a friend.
Although Rochant tackles the same themes of John le Carre, what The Patriots lacks are the sophisticated cynicism and moral ambiguity of the noted author’s best stories. Most of what Rochant says about intelligence operations is familiar, like the contrasts between professionalism and ethics, or the insistence of the Mossad on paying its agents even if they’re willing to work out of idealism. Helmer’s naivete also informs his attitude toward the Mossad as a mythically powerful institution.
The handsome Attal, who played the leads in Rochant’ former movies, acquits himself with an expressive performance that sensitively indicates the gradual changes in his personality. He is surrounded with an able international cast that includes noted Israeli thesp Yossi Banai and Americans Richard Masur, Allen Garfield and Nancy Allen.
Transition from one language to another is surprisingly efficient and effortless.
Tech credits are good, particularly lensing on three continents (Tel-Aviv, Paris, and Washington), which conveys the specific flavor of each locale. Chief problem is unmodulated pacing: at times pic plods along monotonously, with the camera taking excessively long rests on the actors’ faces.
With a running time of almost two and a half hours, The Patriots could benefit from a trimming of at least 20 minutes.
The film, which cost $11 million to produce, was a commercial flop at the box-office.
Credits
A Gaumont Buena Vista International release of Les Productions Lazennec production, with Gaumont/SFP Cinema/Glem Films, with the participation of Canal Plus. Produced by Xavier Amblard.
Executive producers, Katriel Schory (Israel), Gene Rosow (U.S.). Co-producers, Boudjemaah (SFPC), Gerard Louvin (Glem Films).
Directed, written by Eric Rochant.
Camera (color, CinemaScope), Pierre Novion;
Editor, Pascale Fenouillet;
Music, Gerard Torikian; art direction, Thierry Francois;
Costume design, Marie Malterre;
Sound (Dolby), Dominique Dalmasso;
Aassociate producers, Adeline Lecallier, Christophe Rossignon;
Assistant director, Paolo Trotta.
Running time: 144 min.
Directed by Éric Rochant
Written by Éric Rochant
Starring Yvan Attal
Cinematography Pierre Novion
Edited by Pascale Fenouillet
Music by Gérard Torikian
Release date: 1 June 1994
Running time: 138 minutes
Budget $11 million
Box office $2.4 million
Cast
Richard Masur – Jeremy Pelman
Yvan Attal – Ariel Brenner
Allen Garfield – Eagleman
Yossi Banai – Yossi
Nancy Allen – Catherine Pelman
Maurice Bénichou – Yuri
Emmanuelle Devos – Rachel
Hippolyte Girardot – Daniel
Moshe Ivgy – Oron