My Enemy’s Enemy (Kevin MacDonald, 2007) France/UK

Reviewed by Karina Munoz.

My Enemy’s Enemy (2007) is what most documentaries strive to achieve, which is to tell both sides of the story. Oscar-winning documentary director Kevin Macdonald (One Day in September (1999), The Last King of Scotland (2006)) returns to his first love- documentary film-making to portray the life of one of France’s most hated men and most notably nicknamed “The Butcher of Lyon.” MacDonald portrays the Nazi war criminal as not only a torturous murderer and exporter of thousands of Jews, but asks us to question the idea of Justice and his punishment after informing us of the US’s and other countries’ involvement in using murderers like him to fight the war against communism. The responsibility of justice is overlooked once the tables are turned and the need for the Nazi’s war techniques and criminals are utilized to fulfill the needs of other governments. These needs the US and other countries used in fighting Communism are also ideologically replicating the same fascist ways.

Macdonald describes the biographical life of Klaus Barbie, aka Klaus Altman, a Nazi Officer stationed in the WWII in Lyon, France. He, like his fascist regime and French allies, were set out to ultimately fight against “Le Resistance.” This poor boy grew up to be a diligent and tormenting persecutor of traitors and Jews, even causing the extinction of 40 children from an orphanage in Izieu as he mandated their unannounced transportation to Auschwitz. After the war, he was lucky enough to escape to Bolivia where he, ironically sought solace in a farm in the Andes owned by Jewish farmers. Here he had married and made a life under his alias Klaus Altman. Confirmed by historians and Senate, Barbie and others were utilized to discover the communists and political activists collaborating during the rise of unions. He once again was able to replicate the same torture techniques, but now on politically conscious citizens of Bolivia. Later his political connections and association to the Maritime Bolivia shipping company allowed his aspirations for the creation of a Fourth Reich to almost be accomplished, contributing an already turbulent time in Bolivia. The turbulence, too chaotic to maintain a fascist power and new democracy coming in demanded to rid their country of such a criminal, exiling and returning him to France to be persecuted for his crimes.

This movie contains numerous footage and interviews with many of Klaus’s confidants, victims, neighbors, and even himself, creating a realistic portrayal for the audience to understand the type of man we were dealing with. The photographs combined with the serene shots of Bolivia contrasted with those of the tumultuous WWII and Communistic Bolivia translates into the demise and upheavals his own life’s directions. Despite the countless dramatic accounts of many of his victims and murderous deeds, what MacDonald addresses best is the idea of war and ultimately all its automatic evil deeds. If MacDonald can actually have one question the conduct and the justice of a war criminal like Klaus Barbie, whose punishment and exoneration should be decisively black and white, then MacDonald’s documentary becomes one of greatness as it adds reflection into ones own political and moral ideology. Ultimately leaving the true picture rather gray.