Cédric Kahn's account of the little-known trials of Pierre Goldman is both gripping and pertinent

The trials of Pierre Goldman are little known in the UK, but infamous in France and inevitably draw comparisons with the Dreyfus Affair. Goldman was imprisoned for life in 1974 for the murder of two women in a Paris pharmacy in 1969. France's death penalty was not abolished until 1981, so he was lucky to have avoided the guillotine.

This film from director Cédric Kahn covers Goldman's second trial in 1976. Played by Arieh Worthalter, the protagonist vehemently protests his innocence and we never doubt him. What is on trial here, is the French judiciary system and police prejudice against Jews and left-wing activists. Goldman challenges the establishment’s institutional antisemitism and racism, and what is examined, is not so much a double murder, but the character and motivation of the accused himself.

The opening prepares us for Goldman's complex personality. He has labelled his lawyer Georges Kiejman (played by Arthur Harari, who co-wrote another French courtroom drama, Anatomy of A Fall) an ‘armchair Jew’. Goldman is uncompromising, a man of action and, by his own admission, not necessarily noble, but fully committed to his beliefs. Thus, he refuses to name the one person who has framed him, because his father taught him to "never rat on anyone".

Early in his trial, Goldman denounces the play-acting theatre of the court – a speech met, paradoxically, with applause by his audience of black and left-wing supporters. Kahn also eschews theatricality; the film is understated, shot chronologically and in natural light, sticking to the evidence and court transcripts like a documentary. There is no background music. The opening credits are silent, the explanatory text as unadorned as the plain white cover of a classic French paperback. A book perhaps by Jean-Paul Sartre or Françoise Sagan, who were amongst the French intellectual supporters of Goldman. The actor Simone Signoret was another and we see her ushered into the courtroom to watch the proceedings.

Goldman was born in France in 1944 to Jewish, radical left-wing parents, who split up after the Liberation. His mother returned to Poland, but his Resistance-fighter father would not allow his son to join her in a country with terrible Holocaust associations. These bare facts suggest reasons for Goldman’s history of depression, anxiety and rebellion. In 1968, Goldman joined a Venezuelan guerrilla group, but was unable to live up to his father’s heroism; his youth was spent in petty crime, drinking and partying in Caribbean clubs. Goldman makes no secret of his criminal acts of armed robbery and admits to alcoholism, but not immorality: “I would never have opened fire on two unarmed women.” His father endorses the statement; his son was not capable of murder.

Our defendant now stands accused on the flimsiest of evidence; the main witness, a wounded policeman, has changed every detail of his story. In contrast, Goldman binds truth to a simple logic: “I’m innocent because I’m innocent" (a mantra that was the working title of the film).

Without tricks or embellishment, the film holds the attention of its viewers. We are riveted to the narrative, which is told almost entirely through the court procedure. Worthalter is undeniably believable as Goldman and convinces us of his innocence.

The Goldman Case grips and fascinates. It raises the spectre of antisemitism and intergenerational trauma; subjects that remain as relevant as ever.

By Irene Wise

The Goldman Case screens at the UK Jewish Film Festival on Wednesday 29 November. Everyman Cardiff, Wales, CF10 5BZ. ukjewishfilm.org

Read more UKJFF reviews.