It’s the gift that keeps on giving, the real life setting that’s tailor-made for drama. Lives hang in the balance within its confines while good and evil go head-to-head, so it’s no wonder that courtroom dramas have produced some of the best films going down the years. They still do, although more recently it seems that France has claimed the genre as its own with the likes of Saint Omer (2002) and, of course, the brilliant Anatomy Of A Fall (2023).
Following in their footsteps is Cedric Kahn’s The Goldman Case, which comes complete with powerful echoes of one of the biggest legal cases in French history. The Dreyfus affair, which started in 1894 and took 12 years to resolve, saw a military officer tried for espionage and eventually exposed anti-Semitism to be at the root of the accusations. Pierre Goldman (Arieh Worthalter) was a 1970s political activist, initially sentenced to life in prison for a series of armed robberies, one of which resulted in the death of two women. He pleads not guilty to the murder charges and continues to vehemently protest his innocence so an appeal hearing takes place to re-examine the evidence and deliver a final verdict.
Goldman, as played by Worthalter, dominates the film from start to finish, even when he’s not speaking or on screen. A fervent left-winger from a Jewish background, he’s complicated, charismatic, and, essentially, unsympathetic – but that doesn’t mean he’s necessarily a killer. His presence, however, is constant, be it centre stage and hogging the camera, haranguing the prosecutor and the judge and rousing his noisy supporters, or in the background, out of focus but glowering, simmering with rage and threatening another angry outburst at any moment. It’s an explosive performance, one that commands your attention and plants all manner of questions in your mind, about the man, his beliefs, and his innocence.
But who is really on trial here? The screenplay, based on newspaper accounts of the hearing, is methodical, detailed and doesn’t allow Goldman’s playing to the gallery to disguise the growing question mark hanging over the heads of the police. Their evidence is unreliable and, whatever the reason, there’s a genuine whiff of something rotten in the force. A bigger crime emerges here, one that involves and affects many more people, and the connections with the Dreyfus case are crystal clear. The tight confines of the courtroom, together with the searching camera, intensifies the entire experience, as does the witness stand itself. It stands alone in the middle of the court, completely exposed so that inquisitors can walk around it during cross-examination, and even stand behind the witness if they so wish. Anybody giving evidence needs nerves of steel.
In a wry twist, Goldman’s defence counsel is played by Arthur Harari, who shared Anatomy Of A Fall’s Best Original Screenplay Oscar with director Justine Triet, but the two films are not partner pieces as such. The Goldman Case doesn’t have the same ambiguity, taking a leaner approach to its storytelling, yet the sense of history watching over the proceedings never goes away. And it’s no spoiler to say that, despite the verdict, Goldman’s life continued to be turbulent and, ultimately, shrouded in mystery.
★★★★
In UK cinemas from 20 September / Arieh Worthalter, Arthur Harari, Jeremy Lewin, Nicolas Briancon, Chloe Lecerf / Dir: Cedric Kahn / MetFilm Distribution / 12A
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