It’s a nightmare scenario: A Parisian couple sells storage space in their basement to a normal-seeming former history teacher, only to find he had moved in. Worse, the couple learn that the new tenant is an antisemitic Holocaust denier – and property laws make it nearly impossible to evict him.
That scenario is a new movie based on a true story. The French language psychological thriller “The Man in the Basement” was written and directed by Philippe Legue, The film opened in New York on 27 January, followed by screenings in Los Angeles and other US cities.
“It actually happened to a couple I know,” said filmmaker Le Gué in a recent interview with The Times of Israel.
In the film, architect Simon Sandberg (Jeremy Rainier) and his medical technician wife Hélène (Bérénice Bejo) make the mistake of accepting payment from Jack Fonzik (François Cluzet) and giving them the keys to their basement before signing the deed. According to French law, handing over the keys in exchange for money constitutes a sale. Between the exchange and the meeting at the attorney’s office about the deed, Sandberg learns of Fonzik’s beliefs, but it is too late.
Fonzik, a high school history instructor who was fired for teaching untruths to his students, claims to have repeatedly been misunderstood. In his mind, he is just a free thinker who asks questions only about what the world takes as given facts.
Slowly but surely, Fonzik begins to impress Sandberg’s teenage daughter, Justine (Victoria Eber). He also infuses himself into the life of the apartment building, where the other tenants begin to suspect that he poses a threat and turn their backs on Sandberg, who is desperately trying to find a legal way to oust the Holocaust denier. are doing.
Filmmaker Le Gué said, “But unlike in the movie where the husband is Jewish and the wife is not, the real-life couple are both Jewish.”
Speaking from Paris, Le Gué explained that he chose to portray them as an intermarried couple because he is not Jewish and he wanted that perspective in the film. It was a way of showing that Holocaust denial is an affront and a danger to everyone, not just Jews.
“Another reason for this mixing of cultures is that [non-Jewish] The wife is almost more affected and exposed to this conflict. She’s too reactive because she’s too quick and nervous about it. Meanwhile, the main character [the husband], who is Jewish, is more comfortable with it. He does not stand up for his identity. It gives a contrast and a very interesting opposition between the two characters,” Le Gué said.
Over time, however, Simon Sandberg’s equanimity is tested as he becomes increasingly frustrated by the legal obstacles to ousting Fonzik. When he learns that his influential daughter has become infatuated with a conspiracy theorist, his anger turns to violence.
Actor Cluzet excels as Fonzik, who builds tension between his character and Simon until the latter explodes. Cluzet keeps the audience on edge, portraying Fonzik as a down-on-his-luck guy who hides a demonic mind whose purpose is to deliberately torment a Jewish family.
You don’t think he’s a violent person because he portrays himself as a victim
“I think there is nothing more dangerous than [Fonzic’s] way of thinking. There’s this kind of decorum and ease in him, and the violence is hidden. You wouldn’t think he is a violent person because he portrays himself as a victim. This is complete irony. In previous years, it was the Jews who were the victims, and now in a perverse way, he became the victim of the Jews, the outcasts. But of course, he chooses to be an outcast but he pretends to be a victim of the system,” Le Gué said.
Parisian couple Simon and Hélène Sandberg (Jérémy Rainier and Hélène Bejo) sell their basement storage unit to Jacques Fonzik (François Cluzet) only to discover that he is an antisemite and Holocaust denier. (Caroline Bottaro / Greenwich Entertainment)
The Fonzik character is inspired in part by French Holocaust deniers. Robert Farrison, A former professor of French literature at the University of Lyon, he claimed that there were no gas chambers at Auschwitz and that deported Jews died of disease and malnutrition. Farrison was dismissed from his post in 1991 and repeatedly prosecuted after France made Holocaust denial a criminal offense in 1990. Friendly and respected with prominent antisemites, Farrison died in 2018.
“His was a very famous case. He was the father of prohibitionism, but he was at the university and not an ordinary schoolteacher. He had a prestigious position and for a while managed to fool a lot of people, including the leading newspaper Le Monde. He managed to publish an article where he questioned the existence of Auschwitz. This was in the 1970s. It was a real shock to everyone,” Le Gué said.
A current case of Holocaust denial involves a dismissed French schoolteacher like Fonzik. Vincent Renaud In 2001 he was fired from his math teacher’s job for printing and distributing Holocaust-denying pamphlets and giving homework to his students that included counting concentration camp victims. He fled after being convicted, and was taken into custody in Scotland, pending extradition to France this year.
Holocaust denier Robert Farrison in 2014. (YouTube screenshot via Wikimedia Commons)
In “The Man in the Basement”, the Sandberg family turns to several lawyers for help in taking out Fonzik, each taking a different approach. There’s a buzz about prosecuting Holocaust deniers, but she warns Simon Sandberg that it will take a long, long time. A friend who is a lawyer eventually agrees to take on the case and plans to approach it in a different way.
This lawyer sees it as a game and is depicted close to the lawyer who finally managed to win for the real life couple after three trials. They managed to get rid of the Holocaust deniers by establishing that the property The rules didn’t allow the man to defecate in the basement corridor. And he was using the building’s electricity and water, and it was his nuisance that changed the entire shift,” Le Gue said.
“And the story about Mal in the movie is a true story. Eventually the lawyer put the dried faeces of the boy on the judge’s table and thus he got the judge to rule in favor of the couple, so that they could finally get rid of the boy,” he said.
Le Gué takes the opportunity in the film to explore the differences within the Sandberg family in the context of their Jewish identity, brought to the fore by the crisis with Fonzik. Wife Helen, although not Jewish, becomes more involved intellectually and emotionally than anyone in the family’s Holocaust history.
Finally, the lawyer put the dry stool of the boy on the judge’s table and thus he got the judge to rule in favor of the couple.
And while it takes Simon a while to come to grips with why he’s so angry with Fonzik, his older brother David (who co-owns the Paris apartment with Simon and their mom) is quick to take the offensive.
“David is very physical. He knows every inch of its history. He’s a practicing Jew. He goes to synagogue. He’s very active in his relationship with Judaism,” Le Gué notes.
David practices the Israeli self-defense sport Krav Maga. In the film, his son and Simon’s daughter Justine join a Krav Maga club and are seen practicing. This is perhaps a not-so-subtle hint that in these times of growing antisemitism, Jews must learn to defend themselves.
The visual language of “The Man in the Basement” is filled with metaphors beyond Krav Maga, including a mold stain on Sandberg’s bathroom ceiling that continues to grow and resists attempts to remove it. In fact, the entire premise of the film is a powerful metaphor.
“The premise of the story is already an allegory. I didn’t have anything to invent. This man being in the basement is a metaphor for all the low instincts of hatred and disdain and obscurity. All the things we want to repress and ignore in life, you put them in the basement. And this man is like a symbol, a metaphor for this situation. I had to tell the story and the metaphor will speak for itself,” Le Gué said.
Philippe Le Gué, director and writer of ‘Man in the Cave’ (Courtesy)
According to the director, it is essential that we do not ignore the words and actions of contemporary Holocaust deniers and conspiracy theorists like Fonzik as they pretend to question truth, history and reality to the progressive exclusion of reality.
“The distortion of thinking of these people… how they twist reality to say they are not pretending it didn’t happen, but asking do we really have evidence and truth. It is not a method that seeks to discover a different truth, but one that seeks to destroy truth. It’s a way of thinking that is completely destructive,” Le Gué said.
The damage these people do can have a huge social and political impact, but it can also affect things on a much more intimate scale.
The stress of dealing with Holocaust deniers in their basement led the real-life couple on which the film is based to split. In the film, the Sandbergs break up but eventually reunite.
“They manage to get back together but you see they are injured,” Le Gue said.