Henri Verneuil is a director whose films need to be re-watched and re-evaluated. It is not necessarily about his blockbuster films, the ones for which he gained fame as ‘the most American of French directors’. Several of the films at the end of his career have a strong political tone. The first of them is ‘I … comme Icare‘ (‘I for Icarus‘ in the English distribution) from 1979 – an elegant and stylish political thriller inspired by the assassination of JFK. Many film critics and historians consider it more interesting and better cinematically than the film that Oliver Stone would dedicate to the Kennedy case 12 years later. I think they are right.
The screenplay written by Verneuil together with Didier Decoin (who had received the Goncourt Prize in 1977) places the story in an imaginary country, democratically governed (elections, supreme court) and with a presidential regime. In the opening scene of the film, we witness the assassination of a re-elected president at the inauguration ceremony, in a scene that closely resembles the famous images entered in the public consciousness of the assassination of President Kennedy on November 22, 1963. In the following scenes, we understand that the individual suspected of murder, whose name is Daslow (anagram of the name Oswald), is actually the victim of a set-up, being eliminated immediately after his assassination in an execution disguised as suicide. A commission of inquiry is formed to elucidate (or perhaps cover up) the events. From here the plot of the film separates from the historical events. A honest and courageous prosecutor refuses to sign the convenient and too obvious conclusions of the commission’s work, and is given the task of investigating and elucidating the case. Basically the movie starts here. Next we will follow the unfolding of an investigation as in a very good procedural detective investigation film. It is becoming increasingly clear that this is a plot with political implications at the highest level. The lives of witnesses and investigators are also in danger.
If the speculations surrounding the perpetrators and the reasons for JFK’s assassination gave birth to some beautiful conspiracy theories, then we can consider ‘I … comme Icare’ as one of the ultimate films that circulate such theories. But Verneuil‘s intention was, I think, partly different. Placing the story in an imaginary country, but which can be any of the European democracies or South American semi-democracies, he tries to draw attention to the phenomenon of the involvement of secret services in the political life of the most democratic states. One of the most memorable scenes of the film popularizes a real experiment that aimed to explain the causes that lead some people to blindly submit to authority (political, military, legal, universitary) and carry out the most absurd orders, even if they cause suffering of their fellow humans. The conditioning to obeying orders explains the ease with which criminal organizations or totalitarian regimes recruit executors and accomplices to their deeds. As a detective plot, the film is excellently made. Yves Montand plays here one of the roles he had specialized in in the decade that was ending, in political films such as those by Costa Gavras. Ennio Morricone composed the music. The cinematography is also remarkable. Verneuil shot the outdoor scenes in Cergy, a suburb in the northwest of Paris with a futuristic architecture, which is very suitable for the image of the imaginary country in which the action takes place and the atmosphere of slightly oppressive anticipation also present in the corridors of the institutions of justice. Effective and well executed, ‘I … comme Icare‘ is one of the best political thrillers I’ve seen, plus an opportunity to watch Montand, which is always a treat.