Hotel Terminus: The Life and Time of Klaus Barbie

Hotel Terminus: The Life and Time of Klaus Barbie (1988)

a film by Marcel Ophüls

What is it?
Hotel Terminus is a documentary tracing the life of Klaus Barbie: the Gestapo chief in Lyon responsible for imprisoning, deporting, torturing and murdering thousands of Jews and French resistance fighters. Protected by the intelligence of the United States in return for his "anticommunist expertise", Barbie escaped to Latin America where he became an affluent businessman . This movie is a monumental work of research and cinema about the pursuit of answers.

Favourite quote

"Herr Bartelmus? Herr Bartelmus" - Marcel Ophuls searches through a garden and peering under cabbage leaves.

Gossip

If you have seen Carlos you may recognize Jacques Verges, the defense lawyer for Carlos who also defended Klaus Barbie. If you have seen Che you may recognize Regis Debray as the young French intellectual who arrives with Guevara to Bolivia. If you have seen Au Revoir, Les Enfants you may recognize the episode at Izieu.
Why is it worth watching this movie?

As Marcel Ophüls observes "Monumental is a code word for long" but this movie is monumental in all of its 4 and a half hours. It is human, inquisitive and spellbinding, this documentary unravels one of the many stories that summarize the history of the twentieth century and tells it through its protagonists.

I post no memorable scene because no particular scene summarizes the story. Layer by layer, just like an oil painting, each testimony and sequence in this movie constructs a powerful narration and a document that leaves the feeling of a hole in the stomach and ideas that will keep rolling in your head.