Le Faux Soir

Resistance takes many forms in today’s climate where Western nations are facing the rise of right wing neo-fascism. From absurdist memes to pointed late night show monologues to demonstrations, citizens can rally from their couch or take to the streets. But with the ease of clicking Post right at our fingertips, we may take for granted the deathly danger protest often poses. Michael R. Roskam serves up a reminder with Le Faux Soir, a fact-based thriller that takes audiences inside the effort to distribute a single satirical newspaper to readers during the Nazi occupation of Belgium.

It’s 1943 in Brussels and anarchist poet Marc Aubrion (Arieh Worthalter) is fighting back the only way he knows how: secreting filthy poems about Hitler in library books under the name Black Dawn. It’s not much, but it’s enough to earn him the attention of the well-organized and financed resistance movement. However, being welcomed into the group comes at cost: he must cut off all contact with his fiancée Geraldine. It’s a price that Yvon — Marc’s sobriquet among the pseudonymous group — is willing to pay if it means making a real difference. Yvon’s prank-ish and puck-ish spirit inspires an unlikely idea: what if the resistance printed their own version of the Nazi-controlled national newspaper Le Soir? The carefully structured group is led by Francoise (Melanie Thierry), a lawyer who has the final say on operations, while Yvon works day-to-day with this right hand man Georges (Julian Frison) and a group of allies including Jean (Karim Leklou), Theo (Bouli Lanners), and Ferdinand (Francois).

After the plan is hatched, the team has three weeks to bring it to fruition, aiming to publish around the anniversary of Armistice Day in 1918. What follows is well-oiled procedural as we follow Yvon through the intricacies of a plan that is “worse than a bank job.” In under a month, the resistance will have write and edit articles, find letterpress material replicating the masthead and font of Le Soir, locate a printer sympathetic to the cause, and figure out distribution. All while staying under the radar of the ever present Gestapo. A big risk, means a big reward: if they manage to sell all 50,000 copies they plan to print, it will raise 350,000 francs that will be used to fund more operations against the Nazis.

It’s been nearly a decade since Roskam’s last feature film, the 2017 misfire Racer and the Jailbird, and the director behind the stylish and gritty Bullhead and The Drop plays things relatively safe. As far as WWII genre pictures goes, Le Faux Soir doesn’t break any new ground. Ably filmed and acted (Frison has a magnetism that consistently threatens to run away with the movie) there is no effort to push convention. Thus, while engaging, at over two hours the film’s tension tends to wane; there’s never the feeling of doubt about the outcome, but rather how it will come off. And that’s not enough to build the nerve-jangling suspense the movie is aiming for. Meanwhile, the film’s punctuations of humor tend to undercut the gravity the drama as well.

However, a pleasant surprise in the script by Roskam and Bernard Falaise is how the film doubles as a tribute to the bygone era of print journalism. No detail is left unturned in how a paper goes from conception to layout to linotype typesetting, and how the rotary plate is created. It’s fascinating to learn that each printing press has its own unique, serrated cut above the masthead of each individual issue. It’s something of a fingerprint that can identify who printed a particular edition of a newspaper, and it’s one more problem for Yvon and his pals to solve.

As The Onion takes aim at the Trump, Putin, and other oligarchs on a regular basis, with new jokes each week to send to friends on Instagram and Twitter, Le Faux Soir honors those who paved the way. The men and women who couldn’t abide tyranny and found the best way to push back was to take the piss out of their occupiers and let the people know they were not alone.

Director: Michael R. Roskam
Screenplay: Michael R. Roskam, Bernard Falaise
Cast: Arieh Worthalter, Melanie Thierry, Karim Leklou, Mara Taquin, Bouli Lanners, Julien Frison, Francois Damiens
Producers: Cassandre Warnauts, Jean-Yves Roubin, Alice Girard, Vincent Maraval, Sylvain Godart
Cinematography: Jordan Vanschel
Production design: Geert Paredis
Costume design: Dorothée Guiraud
Editing: Nelly Quettier
Music: Christophe Chassol
Sound: Thomas Gastinel, David Vranken, Roland Voglaire, Alek Goosse
Production companies: Frakas Productions (Belgium), Rectangle Productions (France)
World sales: Goodfellas
Venue: Toronto International Film Festival (Special Presentations)
In French
133 minutes