Review – Mr. Klein

I’ve found that when I watch a movie recommended to me by my father that it’s often possible to pinpoint the exact “ah, that’s why he liked this” trigger. In this one it’s the spot late in the show when the title character and a friend accidentally plunk out “The International” on a piano in the presence of the police. The bigger picture is about an unscrupulous art collector who profits from Jewish people who have to sell their possessions on the cheap in order to escape Nazi-occupied France. But the tables turn on him when someone frames him as a member of the group he’s been callously exploiting. The foreground story is as boring as watching paint dry, but the background – the slow, meticulous run-up to the implementation of the Final Solution in France – is fascinating stuff. Mildly amusing