La Trahison
France / Belgium,
2005, 81 min
Shown in 2006
CREDITS
- dir
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Philippe Faucon
- prod
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Richard Djoudi
- scr
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Philippe Faucon, Claude Sale
- cam
-
Laurent Fenart
- editor
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Sophie Mandonnet
- mus
-
Benoît Schlosberg
- cast
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Vincent Martinez, Ahmed Berrhama, Cyril Troley, Walid Bouzham, Medhi Yacef, Medhi Idris
- source
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Pyramide International, 5, rue de Chevalier de Saint-George, 75008 Paris, France. FAX: +33-1-40-20-05-51. EMAIL: pricher@pyramidefilms.com.
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COMMENTS
Philippe Faucon in attendance.
OTHER
An understated thriller, The Betrayal traces the fine ethnic lines among French soldiers stationed in Algeria in 1960. At stake is the fate of four harkis (French soldiers of North African descent) under Lieutenant Roque’s (Vincent Martinez) command. A deeply likable, intelligent man, Roque is thrust into the uncomfortable requirements of his position, as he is prodded to make judgments about the character of his men. The soldiers in question occupy an uneasy position between the French unit under which they serve and the hostile Algerian locals with whom they liaise. The locals treat the harkis as traitors, and the white soldiers treat them with derision. Suspicions about the harkis increase when a notebook is discovered in camp that appears to reveal the soldiers as double agents. The film’s title turns on the many possible interpretations of and questions about the notebook: whether it should be taken as evidence, who has written it, who has betrayed whom. Elegantly, director Philippe Faucon lets the notebook reveal the many underlying tensions amidst the soldiers, locals and the FLN (Algerian resistance fighters). As questions about its authenticity mount, so do intersections of personal feelings and political beliefs, which radiate out into emotional questions of trust and deftly reveal the codes of racism and cultural distress. With an almost invisible hand, Faucon immerses viewers in an intense, remarkably intelligent and suspenseful drama, where each ambiguity acts as a further turn of the screw.
—Sean Uyehara
FACTOID #27
A surrealist stop-motion animator, the Czech Jan Svankmajer, was the first recipient of the Golden Gate Persistence of Vision Award in 1997. The POV Award honors the lifetime achievement of a filmmaker who works outside of feature-length narrative filmmaking.
