Jesse Eisenberg’s casting in this, on paper, sounds like a gag. An actor whose screen persona can be best described as ‘neurotic who never knows when to shut the fuck up’, cast as the world’s most famous mime artist Marcel Marceau. It’s the kind of stunt casting-against-type that Marceau himself experienced when he was tapped for a cameo in Mel Brooks’ Silent Movie (as, ironically, the only character with spoken dialogue), and given how mime is one of the most famously derided performance styles when looked at through a modern lens, it being used as part of a Oscar-thirsty Holocaust drama seems like a recipe for disappointment. But in truth, it fits better than it would seem at first.
Watching Eisenberg at his mime craft, whether as part of his own budding career or as a means of comfort for the myriad of Jewish children he’s helping to protect, is quite the feat of recontextualising the old standards like the invisible wall/box and walking against the wind. It has a similar effect as the Baby It’s Cold Outside scene in A Very Murray Christmas, where the staging managed to iron out a particular lyric that has led to many an uncomfortable implication in the modern discourse. It’s quite captivating to watch, and ends up adding to one of the film’s juicier ideas: Art as political defence and protest.
Through Marcel’s miming, some heavy-handed but still impactful iterations of Ave Maria, a quite powerful moment involving Marcel’s father and his own artistic ambitions, and Marcel literally setting a Nazi on fire, the film frames performance art as part of the arsenal of the Resistance. Apart from reinforcing the film’s evident want to frame itself as part of that Resistance, insisting that Nazi atrocities are not forgotten, it does end up appealing to the poncier side of my critical brain; the part that sees art as an inherently powerful force and a vital component of the human experience.
As for the dramatic and thrilling side of things, the film certainly knows how to create tension in this story of French Resistance fighters trying to get children to safety. Clémence Poésy gives a fucking brutal performance as Emma, whose depiction of the trauma she suffered at witnessing the Nazis at work first-hand reaches the right kind of discomfort; the kind where it’s supposed to be felt. The requisite scenes where Emma and Marcel are on a train, with children in tow, as it gets inspected are pretty teeth-rattling in their pacing, something punctuated by how one of them turns into a conversation between Marcel and a Nazi officer about how to make the officer’s daughter interested in the arts. It’s at once darkly funny and dramatically ironic, as it builds on both Marcel’s relationship with his father, and the film’s larger framing of art as a weapon.
However, the problem comes in when both of those sides come together: The Marcel Marceau biopic and the WWII-set drama. With how much the focus wavers between characters, it can feel at times like it’s merely a Holocaust thriller guest-starring Marcel, a feeling not helped by the wonky framing device of Ed Harris as George S. Patton telling the film’s story to his troops. As much as the connective tissue between the artist and the use of his art fits well with the larger story, it can also feel like an afterthought against everything else, as if the filmmakers weren’t sure how much they were willing to commit to either idea and just settled for trying both.
The end result of all this is an undeniably flawed film that is good at quite a few things, but lacks the true cohesion to make it all harmonise. Eisenberg may struggle with the accent at points, but his physical presence makes up for all sins, and the sentiment made regarding the power of performance art admittedly gives this a certain spice to help separate it from the pack. But unfortunately, that little kick doesn’t end up being enough to complete that separation, making this just another WWII drama with occasional moments of inspiration.
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