René Bousquet ou Le grand arrangement (2007)

In the late 1970s, when an interview in L’Express accuses him of being responsible for the infamous Vel’ d’Hiv roundup, the past catches up with René Bousquet, the former secretary-general of the police under the Vichy regime, now reinvented as a financier. For fifteen years, he tries to defend himself against the charge of having committed a crime against humanity, with help from those close to him and, above all, from his well-connected contacts. At the same time, a woman whom Bousquet had spared from deportation during the Marseille roundup, along with her sister and mother, comes to post several letters in blue envelopes and manages to meet him. Daniel Prévost finds a relatively unexpected role in Bousquet. Directed by Laurent Heynemann, he portrays with great skill the intelligence, bearing, and self-assurance of the ambitious former senior civil servant, now a banker with excellent connections. With restraint, the actor shows that Bousquet was anything but a monster, yet that such a man nevertheless took part in a monstrosity.