UK
4.5*
Director:
Fred Zinnemann
Screenwriter:
Kenneth Ross
Director of Photography:
Jean Tournier
Running time: 145 minutes
Wiretaps, torture, terrorism… it seems like the OAS (“l’Organisation de l’armée secrète” or the Organisation of the Secret Army) was the 1960s version of al-Qaeda – at least, in the kind of behaviour they provoked in government and law enforcement officials. The OAS was a French nationalist group that resisted Algerian independence and was furious when General de Gaulle finally relented and granted the country its freedom in July 1962.
The Day of the Jackal, based on the book of the same name by Frederick Forsyth, stars Edward Fox as a killer for hire, codenamed “The Jackal”, who has been recruited by the OAS to assassinate de Gaulle. This part is fiction, but the story’s context is true to life, including the setup in August 1962 where de Gaulle’s motorcade comes under fire in an ambush staged by Jean Bastien-Thiry of the OAS. Bastien-Thiry is executed, in real life and on film; soon after, according to the fiction, the OAS started to hatch plans again to kill the general.
This is a quintessential thriller: It is all build-up to the climax. But the film gives us, the viewers, ample time to form our own questions about the events and to generate expectations: Will the Jackal be found out? Are we on his side or on the side of de Gaulle? Will the Jackal be successful (he himself says that de Gaulle has the best security service in the world), and will the film essentially rewrite history? Who is the Jackal really?
His main opponent is Claude Lebel, the very methodical deputy commissioner who is not used to the limelight and is often rather awkward in public, despite his formidable skills as a detective. Lebel is played to perfection by Michel Lonsdale.
The film is put together extremely well and has tantalising omissions all over the place, a result of fine editing, clever screenwriting and insightful direction. At a very early stage, we are made aware of certain papers that the Jackal has asked his specialist counterfeiter to produce, but it will only be at the end of the film that we realise precisely how well this professional killer has planned the assassination. That moment, when everything comes together, is not drawn out for the sake of the audience, because director Fred Zinnemann has made as many preparations as the Jackal himself, and we can easily keep up.
While the characters are English, French and Italian, they all speak perfect English, which was perhaps the most commercial option at that time (and would still be today), but the film never seems contrived, because the narrative itself keeps us interested and makes the events cohere into a very strong storyline.
The film uses very little music, and it is surprising, and very refreshing, to have many important moments played out in almost complete silence, which creates anticipation for sound and yet allows us to focus more intently on the visuals, which will be the only source of meaning.
The climax intercuts documentary and staged material very well and demonstrates Zinnemann’s skill as a director for the big screen, especially when he puts on scenes of de Gaulle during the city-wide celebrations of Liberation Day on August 25.
The Day of the Jackal may have a slightly stilted performance by Edward Fox as the Jackal, and it contains a rather ludicrous video recording of OAS member Viktor Wolenski in which the “hidden camera” is sometimes right in his face, but the film exudes a thrill that is difficult to equal by any other film that contains so little real action.