Diversity and directors’ careers rarely go hand in hand. The economics of filmmaking, and the socialization against diversity, practically guarantee that any filmmaker who achieves any level box-office or critical success will be forced to remake the same film again and again (with some subtle variations) throughout their lifetime. That’s what makes the unpredictable oeuvre of Iranian-born, French-based filmmaker Barbet Schroeder so fascinating (and unlikely).

Starting as a producer in Paris in 1960 while in his early 20s, Schroeder, through his company Les Films du Losange, was responsible for producing many of the French New Wave’s greatest works (especially the early films of Eric Rohmer and Jacques Rivette). After switching to directing in the late 1960s, Schroeder spent the next 20 years making a fascinating stream of exotic documentaries (Koko: A Talking Gorilla, General Idi Amin Dada) interspersed with unusual and challenging fiction features (Maitresse, Barfly). With the success of 1990’s Reversal of Fortune, Schroeder became a gun for hire in Hollywood, churning out a series of interesting genre pictures (Desperate Measures, Murder by Numbers) that hold considerable merit for those treasure hunters looking for buried gems. Schroeder abruptly shifted gears in 2000, and now has embarked upon a new phase of making anything he wants at any time.

This brazen disregard for his critical standing has left him as a comfortable outsider in the ruthless world of filmmaking. What better director to take on as heinous an individual (on the surface) as French lawyer Jacques Vergès in the astonishing documentary Terror’s Advocate. Vergès is famous throughout the world as the lawyer whose clients are a who’s who of some of the most despised individuals of the 20th century: Nazi Klaus Barbie, Khmer Rouge leader Khieu Samphen, terrorist leader Carlos the Jackal.

Sitting comfortably in his office, Vergès answers Schroeder’s questions, discussing his life, his clients, and the misconceptions that people have about his personality and his work. Countering his narrative are interviews with friends and colleagues, along with historical footage outlining his career
and the events that shaped it. Terror’s Advocate gives the viewer both a comprehensive overview of the political turmoil that shaped the 20th century, as well as an action-packed history of terrorism since the Second World War. The film moves like a 100-mph bullet train, with so much
information, interviews, and documentation of events that it leaves you exhausted. It pulls you into the eye of the tornado and returns you shaken, battered, and bruised outside your comfort cottage of
indifference.

What Schroeder doesn’t do is provide easy answers for the viewer — or his subject. What starts as a complicated journey ends as a masterpiece of ambiguity and uncertainty. Just like life, but a lot messier. For some unfathomable reason, Terror’s Advocate never played theatrically in Edmonton. Do yourself a favour: escape from the mediocrity and conformity that the culture force-feeds us on a daily basis, watch Terror’s Advocate, and descend into the underworld that exists within us all.