Elevator the Gallows: Nemes Aims to Exhaust in Homage to the French Resistance
Jean-Pierre Melville’s classic account of the French Resistance, Army of Shadows (1969) opens with a quote from the French novelist Georges Courteline – “Bad memories! I welcome you anyway…you are my long lost youth.” With his fourth feature Moulin, so seems to be the sentiment of Hungarian director László Nemes, returning to the inferno of WWII with this homage to Jean Moulin, a leader of the French Resistance who was credited with unifying an array of various networks. He was captured, tortured and murdered in 1943, sent to his grave without betraying cause or country. Coming from Nemes, whose grueling debut was 2015’s Son of Saul, one knows what to expect when it comes to confrontation with base depravity and dehumanization, which is certainly a defining element of his latest work. It’s a recuperation and a reminder of our collective bad memories, at the least capturing an essence of the audacity and resilience of those who defied and resisted from an era whose energies have continued to regenerate and blossom anew.
After having escaped the Nazis in 1940, Jean Moulin (Gilles Lellouche) escaped to London. In 1943, he parachuted back to France to assume the position as the new leader of the resistance, tasked with organizing various factions. A man from their group named Vidal is captured, forcing Moulin to organize a meeting with resistance leaders to name his replacement. However, Moulin and his compatriots are betrayed, the Gestapo arresting, interrogating and torturing them. Klaus Barbie (Lars Eidinger) believes Moulin is the leader known as ‘Max,’ a man who knows where allied forces plan to strike.
The script from Nemes and Olivier Demangel’s (Atlantics, 2018) doesn’t allow for much space to work around its key figures as anything more than archetypes. To be fair, much like Son of Saul, this is a time and place akin to the outer circle of hell. Little is learned about Moulin, aka Jacques Martel, beyond his reputation as a leader thanks to his ‘cult of personality,’ a charge tossed at him in a heated debate amongst members of the resistance shortly after he parachutes into occupied France. However, despite an admirable performance from Lellouche, which works quite effectively in arduous third act, he’s a performer who tends to exist in specific emotional registers (for instance, he employs a similar kind of brooding, altruism displayed in Jeanne Herry’s In Safe Hands, 2018). There’s something of a Jean Gabin persona on display as he navigates Moulin’s limited options, a man who is convinced he won’t be able to withstand torture, adding to the tension of the inevitable atrocities he’s about to endure.
Counter to Lellouche is Lars Eidinger as the notorious Klaus Barbie, who, thankfully, avoids an angle of caricature the actor is sometimes keen to employ. An incredibly elegant Louise Bourgoin, the countess who has been assigned as Moulin’s social circle decoy in Lyon, attempts to extricate from Barbie’s hands. A demeaning waltz in Barbie’s quarters shakes her, where it is also implied Moulin stymied sexual tension with her to mask his homosexuality. It is perhaps a minor credit to Nemes to include this facet of Moulin rather than excise his sexual orientation for the preservation of heroism untainted by additional social codes decrying his worth and humanity. Moulin’s limited relationship with a handsome young cell-mate (Félix Lefebvre) skirts, briefly, into a kind of Kiss of the Spiderwoman (1985) romanticism, at least channeling the necessary levity of human connection.
While not as violently horrific as Son of Saul, Nemes eventually gets to the torturous agony, which remains difficult to sit with. Much of this happens offscreen, such as when Moulin is forced to endure watching unspeakable acts committed against his comrades, or when the young go-between Colette (Hortense Quentin de Gromard) is torn apart by German Shepards. Perhaps more sensational are all the nasty bits of terror vocalized by Barbie, who speaks with glee about tossing Jewish babies into the fire pits, delighting in the sound of their exploding corpses.
Nemes, at last, achieves his intended ability to sting, and if there’s any merit in defending the continual necessity of our collective confrontation, grappling, and processing of this era, it would be for cinema which doesn’t shy away from horror. Compared to something like Resistance (2020), a failed attempt to recuperate the actions of Marcel Marceu’s (played by Jesse Eisenberg) resistance efforts, Moulin feels like a masterpiece (elevated significantly by DP Matyas Erdely, who employs jaundiced yellow and green hues in the daytime, his nights spiked with a sinister palette like the foggy Port of Shadows, 1938). At the last gasp, Nemes literally brings us to gaze into the inferno. Because these fires are still blazing.
Reviewed on 17th at the 2026 Cannes Film Festival (79th edition) – Competition. XXX Mins
★★★/☆☆☆☆☆
