MON COLONEL (THE COLONEL)
France & Belgium/2006/French and Arabic dialogue with English subtitles/ Colour and B&W/35mm/110 mins
The film begins in Paris when a retired French army colonel, Raoul Duplan, is found murdered. As police and army investigate, side by side, they start to receive mysterious letters that reveal the colonel’s past and the film recalls, in flashbacks, events during the French occupation of Algeria in 1956; events that may appear to provide reasonable motives for the murder. It focuses on the relationship between Duplan (Olivier Gourmet) and a sensitive young lieutenant, Guy Rossi (Robinson Stévenin) and exposes how
torture is carried out in the name of “a war on terror”. Laurent Herbiet’s feature debut has a fine script, co-written by that master of political cinema, Costa-Gavras.
LAURENT HERBIET was born in Annay, France. In almost two decades as an assistant director, he has worked with the likes of Claude Lelouch (And Now… Ladies and Gentlemen, 2002; Une pour toutes, 1999) and Alain Resnais (Not on the Lips, 2003). He wrote and directed the short film Le Poids du ciel (2000).
Director: Laurent Herbiet
Producers: Salem Brahimi, Costa-Gavras, Jean-Pierre Dardenne, Luc Dardenne, Michèle Ray-Gavras
Screenplay: Costa-Gavras, Jean-Claude Grumberg, based on a novel by Francis Zamponi Cinematographer: Patrick Blossier
Editor: Nicole Berckmans
Composer: Armand Amar
Cast: Olivier Gourmet, Robinson Stévenin, Cécile De France, Bruno Solo, Eric Caravaca
