A Self Made Hero

Jacques Audiard, France 1996, 105 minutes

This is the follow up to his Regarder Les Hommes Tomber, which won Audiard and Le Henry the Cannes Prize for Best Screenplay. That same innovative writing is also visible in this film.

The film stars Mathieu Kassovitz (the director of the smash hit French film La Haine ) as Albert, a timid impoverished nobody who gains love and wedlock by pretending to be a novelist and does little during the war, bar act as a travelling salesman. On the conclusion of the war however, Albert finds out both his father-in-law and wife have been working for the resistance while his mother-in-law was a collaborator.

Albert is incensed that none of his in-laws trusted him enough to confide in and leaves this domestic set up for Paris, meeting a gay member of the French Intelligence Services, as well as working as an assistant for a local black market entrepreneur.

Albert uses these experiences to convince those around him (using wit and cunning) that he is an fact a resistance war hero, with no negative history (in fact no history at all, bar hear-say) ensuring other Resistance heroes feel they do actually remember him. A rise within the post war military establishment results helped by a lack of commitment to either the political left or right.

The film, like Regarder uses an ingenious mesh of inter-woven events to give a stunningly insightful, yet humorous picture of the wily Albert, using interview footage to show how he is perceived by those around him.

Audiard turns a simple impostor yarn into a full blown epic, posing questions such as whether empirical experience is really necessary? Is being perceived to have carried out actions enough? He constantly satirises the main characters' identities as well as French nationalism. The film has an inspired script which takes the viewer up this blind alley and then that, while very slowly increasing the viewers understanding of what is going on. Eventually, one (unlike most Hollywood Movies) can neither predict what is going to happen nor the outcome of the film.

Audiard has created a web of magic which I feel makes this one of the most intricately sculpted and watchable French films of perhaps the last five years.

A Self Made Hero is a delight to watch as Audiard skilfully spins his web of coincidence, cunning and comedy to provide a highly original story and a visual treat for the viewer.

Review by Stephen J Brennan
Taken from EUFS Programme 1997-98