This really hadn't any beginning, middle or end. It simply was a long conversation with various persons and Jaques Verges, the advocate of terror.
The idea is an intriguing one, that of a lawyer who defends the reprehensible because he believes in due-process and the law more than abstract ideas like morality and goodness.
But this isn't what it was, because Verges never believed his clients lacking in morality or goodness. He represented these clients because politically he felt he had to.
It'd been more interesting (I think) to understand the psyche of a lawyer who represents clients he himself (or she herself) detests and holds no political allegiance to.
The runtime is a bloated two-hours and seventeen minutes, and in that time holds very little focus. It's very interesting subject-matter, but it's presented in such a wandering manner that leaves us bored. Only two or three trials are explicitly discussed and played out for the viewers. The rest of this film is Verges political tendencies and how they have got him in hot water with the French government.
The idea is an intriguing one, that of a lawyer who defends the reprehensible because he believes in due-process and the law more than abstract ideas like morality and goodness.
But this isn't what it was, because Verges never believed his clients lacking in morality or goodness. He represented these clients because politically he felt he had to.
It'd been more interesting (I think) to understand the psyche of a lawyer who represents clients he himself (or she herself) detests and holds no political allegiance to.
The runtime is a bloated two-hours and seventeen minutes, and in that time holds very little focus. It's very interesting subject-matter, but it's presented in such a wandering manner that leaves us bored. Only two or three trials are explicitly discussed and played out for the viewers. The rest of this film is Verges political tendencies and how they have got him in hot water with the French government.