Directed by Philippe Le Guay
Written by Philippe Le Guay, Gilles Taurand
Starring: François Cluzet, Jérémie Renier, Bérénice Bejo
MPAA Rating (if available) N/A
Runtime: 1 hour, 54 minutes
In theaters November 15 and November 17 at the Philadelphia Jewish Film Festival

by Gary M. Kramer

The title character in The Man in the Basement, screening November 15 at the Philadelphia Jewish Film Festival, is Jacques Fonzic (François Cluzet), who buys the title space from Simon Sandberg (Jérémie Renier). When Simon sees that Jacques is not using the basement for storage, as he said, but is sleeping there, Simon offers Jacques a spare room he has in his apartment building. However, just as the deal for the basement is being finalized—and even though money has changed hands—Simon learns that Jacques is a Holocaust denier. This prompts Simon to cancel the sale. However, Jacques has the law on his side, and squats, causing a war to escalate between the two men.

The Man in the Basement twists and turns as Jacques makes life difficult for Simon, whose relationship with his wife Hélène (Bérénice Bejo) and daughter, Justine (Victoria Eber) also becomes strained in the process. Moreover, Jacques privately advises Justine to “search for truth” and not accept the facts as they are presented. As Simon’s efforts to evict Jacques hit obstacles, his family and his neighbors also lose patience with him. 

Director/cowriter Philippe Le Guay keeps The Man in the Basement tense and engaging as Simon becomes unmoored by his snowballing situation. Renier gives a fantastic performance as a man who loses control as he tries to keep things under control. 

Le Guay spoke with MovieJawn about his nifty and timely film.
I like how a simple transaction followed by an act of kindness/blind trust that quickly turns sinister in the film. Can you talk about using the psychological thriller framework for a story about human rights and identity? The characters want to live their lives as they want but confront forces that stop them.

That is what I wanted to achieve. I like the idea of this kind of innocence, naivete, and kindness in the character of Simon. He is open and he can’t imagine that there are dark forces around him. He has a candid vision of life and ignores the horrors that have happened to his own family—that his great uncle has been sent to Auschwitz. He doesn’t want to confront his past or the family’s past. He’s forward looking.

There is an exchange with Simon’s brother David (Jonathan Zaccaï), who considers the past while Simon only looks ahead. You can’t do that; you have to know your history. 

Exactly, but I agree with both statements. They are both right, which is what is interesting with the characters. This situation forces Simon to confront his past and his memories of the family. Without this situation he finds himself in—which we don’t envy—despite this violence, he will learn something from it.

The film also raises questions about seeking truth, in what a character calls, “an age of doubt.” The idea of critical thinking is important, but Jacques describes it as “free thinking.” What observations do you have about how people accept or deny facts or the “official story,” and need to pursue the truth? This idea also gets into our current age of cancel culture.

The position of asking questions is the basic position for any scientist, any historian. It’s the right position in life—never take anything for granted. But the character of Jacques Fonzic does not ask questions to dig for truth or find a higher level of truth; he wants to question the truth and destroy the truth, which is a very different approach from a scientist or a historian. A guy like Fonzic will never be satisfied by any answers. He wants to destroy the evidence and the facts and history. There’s a statement he stands for saying, “We can’t trust witnesses. All the witness are wrong—they think they see something, like with a car accident, where everyone has a different interpretation.” It’s a dreadful logic that denies anyone to be able to say anything that is true. The ultimate result of asking questions is his denial of truth and the Holocaust, and this way of thinking spreads chaos. Truth is the enemy, unlike a real scientist.  

There is also an emphasis on history and legacy in the film. There are photos of Simon’s family that are shown and a discussion of property and deeds and how things are handed down through generations. There is also talk about revisionist history. What are your thoughts about how we learn and process and remember and teach history?

There are two kinds of history in the film. There is objective history, Justine is asked to write an essay about the extermination of the American Indians, and she is terrified to discover how many millions of Indians were killed. That’s History with a capital H. Then there is the other kind of history, the family history, the secrets hidden and the things we don’t talk about and all the shadows in a family history, Simon is not interested in digging into this past. For him, he has the illusion that it Is behind him. 

Renier gives a great performance. How did you and Jérémie work on the character? 

He has this idea of the father protecting the family and building a wall of secrets around the family. It’s the one thing he can’t do because the enemy [Jacques] is “inside.” The basement is a metaphor for what we have hidden in ourselves and what we don’t want others to see. Jacques has invaded this space and knows everything. There’s a fantasy scene that Hélène has where Jacques could be inside the bedroom. So, the protection Simon has is an illusion. The walls fall down when he discovers Justine has spoken to Jacques and has been influenced by him. That’s the ultimate trespass. 

The subplot with Justine is very interesting, and that she might change her mind about things after her encounters with Jacques. This insidious idea of persuading the youth. To me that was quite sinister and shows how cults and right-wing groups operate. Can you talk about this?

To a general extent, the danger of the Holocaust denier is that they talk to an unprepared younger generation. Justine is powerful, she is not naïve, and she knows facts, but there is a romanticism about her that she will pay attention to a man whom she sees as a victim. Jacques has nothing, he is living in a basement, so how can he be dangerous? 

There’s a film I like, Cape Fear, which has the same pattern. The couple is fighting against this character played by DeNiro, and the vulnerability of the couple and Achilles’ heel is the daughter, because she can be influenced. She’s impressionistic. It gives a stake that is not only moral about truth but also very emotional. The character of Simon believes in law and turns against his wife who wants to send guys in and get rid of Jacques. She doesn’t want to hear about the law. Simon believes in democracy, and rights and the process of truth, but ultimately, he jeopardizes things because believes his daughter is danger. It’s like a western. There is the contradiction between do we respect the law, or do we handle the situation ourselves?

Jacques and Simon are both doing things that are wrong. Likewise, there’s an interesting scene where Hélène refuses to take blood from Jacques because of what he believes. What are your thoughts on the film’s knotty morality?

The perversion of Jacques is that he plays the victim. He is not on the side of the hangman who persecutes—he is the victim. Even in the blood scene, he says the words of Shylock when he says, “If you cut me, I bleed.” I’m a human being after all. In a perverted way, Jacques takes the word of the ultimate Jew, Shylock, and makes it his.

What can you say about the way the film presents the arcs for the characters? The family changes over the course of the story and their dealings with Jacques.
The first images of Simon and Hélène together, they are so cute and handsome. They have never been through any challenges or confronted any real pain. The whole story is about their confrontation and the violence they are subjected to. They have been through a kind of trauma. They are seeing something they have not experienced before, so they need to heal. At the end, I didn’t want to give the illusion that we are getting rid of evil and antisemitism. I didn’t want to have too much of a happy ending. 

This is why your film is very timely. We are seeing a real rise of hatred all over the world.   

It's very contemporary. The film came out in France while Éric Zemmour was running for president. He built an entire theory that during the German occupation in France Marechal Petain was protecting Jews. It’s the biggest lie ever told. What happened is that the famous arrest in July 1942 was all performed by the French police. There was not a single German officer or soldier arresting Jews. There’s a building of a new so-called innocence of this past in France. The film and conspiracy theories had an important echo with this political background today.