Arieh Worthalter as Pierre Goldman [Moonshaker]

THE GOLDMAN CASE
Directed by Cedric Kahn
Certificate: 12a
☆☆☆☆

STEP into a courtroom and you’ll find an actor in a black gown selling a story to the judge and jury.
Add to the fact that courtrooms are where the minutiae of communal life comes together, it is hardly surprising directors have no fear setting stories in such surroundings.

Pierre Goldman was a French far-left revolutionary who spent time in South America and believed in armed resistance against right-wing governments and the ruling classes.

He was tried and convicted of four armed robberies. In one of the hold-ups, two women were murdered – and we join Pierre (Arieh Worthalter) in the dock in 1976, where he is appealing against his conviction for their deaths.

Goldman admitted to the robberies but not the killings and wanted to clear his name.

Screenwriter Nathalie Hertzberg has drawn on contemporaneous reports and court transcripts to create an enthralling and dramatic spectacle in the confines of a windowless room, with men in suits standing at microphones.

While we are introduced to a cast of prosecutors, defence barristers, and witnesses, Goldman lurks, scowling in the dock throughout.

Goldman’s ethics drive the narrative. From the start, when we read a letter from Goldman to his lawyer, we understand how prickly he is: on the stand, the power of his beliefs shines off Worthalter, who has turned in an exemplary performance.

We then follow the story with questions of interpretation, of lies held as truth due to political perceptions, of anti-Semitism and racism.

And it shines a light on the period of post-war reaction to the 1930s and 40s. A generation grew up knowing that their parents were either murdered or murderers: a generation indicted by their work for, or lack of opposition to, the evil of Nazism.

It brought Europe the Red Army Faction, The Red Brigades, The October 22 Group and others: Goldman is also a product of those times.

Goldman’s Polish parents are resistance fighters and Goldman sought to live up to their example. It gives him a paradoxical edge as a hero.

The courtroom is mesmerising theatre: prosecutor Garaud (Nicholas Briançon) is the annoying , blustering right wing legal type.

Opposite, the Goldman legal team are a motley bunch: most attractive is the older wig Bartoli (Christian Mazzuchini), whose final summing up is a Shakespearean piece of dynamite dialogue.