DR. PETIOT Movie Review

Le Docteur Petiot

Docteur Petiot is the true story of a physician in occupied Paris who assured Jews that he could transport them safely out of the country for a price; after taking their possessions, however, he turned them over to the Nazis to be murdered. Considering the intrinsic fascination of this real-life horror story, and in spite of the casting of the reliable Michel Serrault as Petiot, director Christian de Chalonge has achieved the nearly impossible; he's made a dull, flatly uninteresting film that strains credulity despite its factual basis. The problem is the director's basic approach to the character. He portrays Petiot almost literally as a movie monster; with his wild eyes, pale makeup, and swirling, joyous dance steps, we expect this Petiot to get into his coffin at sunrise, or to need some sort of liquid concoction to keep him so animated. It's not even vaguely shocking to see a vampire murder without conscience, but to see an actual human being—which, despite their inhuman behavior, is what the Nazis and their collaborators were, after all—rationalize sending friends and strangers to their deaths is what would have made Docteur Petiot both valuable and truly horrifying. This Petiot isn't human on any level; despite Serrault's dazzling theatrics, the character as conceived here could have been played just as convincingly by Bela Lugosi or Robert Englund.

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1990 102m/C FR Michel Serrault, Berangere Bonvoisin, Aurore Prieto, Nita Klein, Dominique Marcas, Andre Lacombe, Pierre Romans, Zbigniew Horoks, Claude Degliame, Martine Montgermont, Nini Crepon, Andre Julien, Andre Chaumeau, Axel Bogousslavsky, Maxime Collion, Nadege Boscher, Jean Dautremay, Michel Hart; D: Christian de Chalonge; W: Christian de Chalonge, Dominique Garnier; C: Patrick Blossier; M: Michel Portal. VHS WAC, FCT