Film Forum

Winner of the Grand Jury Prize at the 2019 Venice Film Festival. Paris, 1895: Jewish Army Captain Alfred Dreyfus (Louis Garrel) is ceremoniously stripped of his status and sentenced to life on a penal colony for passing secrets to Germany. Officer George Picquart (Jean Dujardin), appointed head of military counter-intelligence, discovers that the Germans continue to receive secrets, and that a mole is still at large. Polanski and Harris (author of Conclave) – who also collaborated on THE GHOST WRITER – forge a historical thriller from deeply researched details of the Dreyfus Affair, a scandal that divided French society for 12 years, elicited Émile Zola's famed "J'Accuse...!" open letter, and remains a monumental case of institutional injustice and antisemitism.

Presented with support from the Ada Katz Fund for Literature in Film and The Joan S. Constantiner Fund for Jewish and Holocaust Films

2019     132 MIN.     FRANCE / ITALY     IN FRENCH WITH ENGLISH SUBTITLES

PROGRAMMING NOTE: AN OFFICER AND A SPY premiered at the 2019 Venice Film Festival and subsequently opened theatrically in Europe, Mexico, and Russia. This is its first screening and theatrical run in the U.S. We recognize that, in light of Roman Polanski’s sexual assault conviction and allegations, the showing of this film may generate strong reactions. In presenting this work, Film Forum does not condone Polanski's crime. We respect our audience's diverging opinions, and we acknowledge the complicated debate surrounding the presentation of work by artists with controversial or problematic histories.

We also feel that this film is a well-crafted, dramatic depiction of the Dreyfus Affair — a landmark case of institutional corruption, antisemitism, and resistance to both, and a timely reminder of the perils of being a whistleblower. It is thus an important contribution to cinema’s crucial role in historical storytelling. We have programmed the film in keeping with our commitment to presenting compelling world cinema to NYC audiences.

Reviews

“Effortlessly absorbing…With its proliferation of intercepted documents and carefully scrutinized handwriting samples, it opens an engrossing window on the top-secret workings of 19th century French intelligence. Polanski, who wrote the script with Robert Harris (the writer of the novel on which it’s based), distills a complicated chain of evidence into a succession of highly incisive, disciplined scenes, superbly acted by an ensemble that includes Mathieu Amalric, Melvil Poupaud, Grégory Gadebois and Emmanuelle Seigner. All of them, like Polanski, have scaled their talents to the material with classical precision and intelligence.”
– Justin Chang, Los Angeles Times

“An astonishingly skillful account of the Dreyfus Affair...”
– Stephanie Zacharek, TIME

“Lively and urgent… Polanski’s finest work in many years… [An] increasingly engrossing drama… Just as he represents a new era when the military would face increasingly formidable rivals for institutional power, Picquart also stands for a new kind of hero: Instead of distinguishing himself in letters or in battle, he stands out merely because he is an honest person in a corrupt system, doggedly sticking up for the truth in the face of immense pressure to bury it.”
– Kyle Smith, The Wall Street Journal

★★★★★ “A gripping, brainy historical thriller… An immaculate piece of period storytelling.... Each frame is filled with painterly detail; each performance is distinctive.”
– Phil de Semlyn, Time Out

“Perfectly composed and gorgeously mounted, it is a masterful compression of the serpentine intricacies of the Dreyfus story; no other version hews so faithfully to the facts of the case and communicates the details so lucidly and comprehensively.”
– Thomas Doherty, Cineaste

“A masterly period drama — Polanski’s best work since THE PIANIST.”
– Michael Phillips, Chicago Tribune

“TENSE, IMMERSIVE.. What begins as a police procedural of unusual vibrancy and sophistication, featuring cutting-edge (and dubious) detection and forensics circa 1896, turns into a tough-minded chronicle of an iconoclastic crusade…This film captures the extremes of the Belle Époque: the august army-command offices and the squalid Statistical Section building, Renoir-esque picnics and racy saloons, grand museums, glittering salons and dusky, smoke-filled bistros... In Dujardin’s virile, hyper-alert performance, Picquart is a casual anti-Semite overtaken by his sense of justice and decency.”
– Michael Sragow, Commentary

“Chilling…[a] painstakingly researched historical drama... Polanski and Harris don’t approach the past as pure allegory for the present, but they remind us of where we’ve been for a reason.”
– Eli Friedberg, Slant

★★★★ “One of Polanski’s finest pictures. Jean Dujardin…is utterly flawless as Picquart.”
– Glenn Kenny, RogerEbert.com

“The heart of the action in AN OFFICER AND A SPY is a detective story... Dujardin is in nearly every scene, underlining the movie’s fascinating nature as a chamber drama often played out in cramped offices, spacious generals’ quarters, living rooms, hallways, staircases, and lobbies. Some of Polanski’s best work in the 1960s, including REPULSION and ROSEMARY’S BABY, transformed enclosed spaces into whole worlds roiling with disturbing and evil forces, and while THE GHOST WRITER also worked at this scale, AN OFFICER AND A SPY pushes this sense to an extreme, while never feeling overtly claustrophobic.”
– Robert Koehler, Cineaste