It is a performances centric movie

One of the most extraordinary films you will see this year. Take that as you want.

By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

Worth seeing just to witness how winsome it is.

Robert Klein cannot find any fault with the state of affairs in German-occupied France. He has a well-furnished flat, a mistress, and business is booming. Jews facing discrimination because of laws edicted by the French government are desperate to sell valuable works of art - and it is easy for him to get them at bargain prices. His cozy life is disrupted when he realizes that there is another Robert Klein in Paris - a Jew with a rather mysterious behavior.Although Wisconsin-born director Joseph Losey integrates historical elements (such as the infamous Vel' d'Hiv Roundup) into the film, it is more than a reconstruction of the life and status of the Jews under the Vichy regime. The relationship of the film with the works of the writer Franz Kafka has often been noted.The Kafka connection is what makes the film so enjoyable. The story on its own is good, though Klein comes off as a smug fool. Once his life enters the Kafkaesque pointless journey, it gets interesting. We may or may not feel sorry for him (he is not a sympathetic character), but we are interested to see where the mystery goes.

Mr. Klein is one of the few movies I've watched because of the person that wrote it. After enjoying The Battle of Algiers, State of Siege and Queimada, I had to continue watching the movies written by the spectacular politically-minded Franco Solinas. The fact that one of my favourite directors, Costa-Gavras, did uncredited work on the script, was a major draw too. I'd never heard of Joseph Losey and although I've recently discovered the beautiful, ice-cold Alain Delon through Jean-Pierre Melville's movies, I wouldn't watch a movie just because of his good looks.So thank you Mr. Franco Solinas for a new good movie and a unique take on the Holocaust theme.Alain Delon plays Mr. Robert Klein, a normal man who deals in art. In Nazi-occupied France, his business blooms as he buys merchandise at low cost from Jews trying to escape. Since they're at a disadvantage, Mr. Klein only profits from their business relationships. He's not too concerned with what's going on. After all he's not Jewish.Then one day a Jewish newspaper appears at his door: it seems Mr. Klein is on the subscribers' list. That can't be since he's not Jewish. It seems there's another Robert Klein that got mixed up with him. He tries to sort out the misunderstanding with the police, but the other Klein has disappeared and our protagonist unwittingly becomes victim of an investigation and police harassment.Continuing to believe that everything will be sorted out – he's a good Frenchman, he claims, and believes in his country's institutions – he decides to look for the other Klein. But wherever he goes he only finds mysteries and dead ends. Why is this happening to Mr. Klein? Why is the other Klein doing this to him? Who is he? These are just some of the questions our protagonist desperately wants to answer.On the surface this is a metaphysical thriller, much in the tradition of European thrillers like Antonioni's L'Avventure, Blow-Up or The Passenger, in which facts, answers and clarity are less important than the philosophical questions that the mysteries open. Owing more to Kafka than Raymond Chandler, this is the story of how an ordinary man is caught in the bureaucratic machinery of the institutions he believes in, that replace truth with their inexorable authority. It's a prison made without walls and bars but perhaps more oppressive since it can steal even one man's identity.The ending is truly inspired, one of the finest examples of fatalism I've ever seen in a movie. Looking back, one can't help thinking the movie couldn't end in any other way. And yet it'll come as a surprise to any viewer.Franco Solinas, Joseph Losey and Alain Delon are all to commend for a heartbreaking movie.

The French don't like talking about what happened in France in the Second World War when they are blamed of collaborating with the Nazis. This particular movie does not try to make history seem nicer than it was. Hats off to the producers, one of them Alain Delon himself, for bringing this serious topic to the screen.Apart from the historical background this is also a very suspenseful, well-written thriller with barely any lost minutes or boring scenes. There's no need to go through the content exactly again now, but it sure is an unusual and interesting one. The fight for your own identity. Mr Klein, an antiques seller who profits from sales of Jews who are in danger and want of money, finds out there's someone in Paris who's also called Robert Klein. As this Mr Klein is, as he suspects, a Jew he tries everything to find the one who steals his "safe identity".The director, Joseph Losey, presents us a very atmospheric picture of Paris 1942. The actors are all good, but the star is of course Alain Delon. Delon gives what is probably among his greatest character roles ever and he completely disappears into the demanding role. The screenplay is consistently fine and never has any missteps, including a dramatic and very touching final. A French film gem from the Seventies, watch it now!

Mr. Klein is a magnetic masterpiece,it has the characteristics of a Film Noir although it's not a detective movie.It deals in a subtile way but irritating with one of the main traumas in the human Era suffered in the 20th century - The Holocaust. The plot seems to be ordinary and straight forward but in the background we have many clues that what seems to be is not what there is. Joseph Losey made here a genious work of directing,creating a mysterious movie with even more mysterious double character of Mr. Klein - one in the shade and one very well performed by Alain Delon.