Terror's Advocate

"Terror's Advocate" opens with the statement that the film presents director Barbet Schroeder's view of Jacques Vergès, but after 2 hours and 17 minutes documenting 5 decades of the controversial defense lawyer's career, I wish I knew what the director has to say about it. Jacques Verges is a Frenchman born in Thailand to a Vietnamese mother and a father from the Reunion Islands. Born under the yoke of French colonialism, or so he perceived, Verges became a communist and a proponent of all things anti-colonial, defending FLN bombers in Algeria and PFLP militants in Europe, before going on to cases altogether more mercenary, such as the defense of extortionist terrorist "Carlos" and "Butcher of Lyon" Klaus Barbie.

Verges, himself, is interviewed extensively for this film, sitting behind a desk in what looks like a luxurious home office, smugly puffing on a cigar. He doesn't make a convincing Marxist. He makes a better hedonist. But he tells us about his background, some of the cases he worked on, the people he met, always careful to cast his actions in the light of anti-colonialism and Western hypocrisy. Verges' associates are also interviewed, including many former terrorists, journalists, historians, and even an ex-Stasi agent. From these interviews, the film pieces together Verges' role in defending FLN bombers, including Djamila Bouhired, whom he later married, PFLP bombers, and his defense of Red Army Faction militants.

One problem with "Terror's Advocate" is that it spends most of its time explaining the "terrorist" or "revolutionary" organizations whose members Jacques Verges defended, leaving us to draw our own conclusions about his character with limited information. His career defending African autocrats is limited to a brief discussion of money that he was paid to defend Moise Tshombe and had to pay back. The film spends over half an hour on the FLN's battle in Algeria, a half hour on the 8 years he spent incognito, doing nothing, and 50 minutes on Carlos' organization in Europe in the 1970s and 1980s, whose connections to other revolutionary organizations seem as incoherent as its politics.

Jacques Verges is an intriguing subject, but he is an egotistical man who communicates by putting on a show, never revealing his real motivations. For this reason, a documentary about him needs to be deliberate in what it's saying, or it risks saying nothing. Verges' cases since 1978 have been more in service to his ego and his wallet than to his clients. Of course, he is such a fervent ideologue that even in his better days he couldn't see colonialism or its enemies realistically. And he long ago became a hypocrite. I doubt he cares. But Jacques Verges made a point of sticking his finger in the pie of every militant, leftist, or nationalist movement in Europe or Africa in the second half of the 20th century. He needs a more incisive biography than "Terror's Advocate". If you visit the film's web site, you will find that Barbet Schroeder does have a thoughtful opinion about Verges. It just doesn't come across in this film. In French, English, and German with English subtitles. The only bonus feature on the Magnolia 2008 DVD is a Historical Timeline of Verges' cases and events 1924-2005.