‘Moulin’: László Nemes’ Narratively Flat, Visually Arresting Spy Drama

Perhaps it takes an outsider to approach a figure of national pride with cinematic honesty. In that vein, Hungarian maestro László Nemes is a perfect fit on paper for “Moulin,” a biographical film about Jean Moulin, a French Resistance fighter of considerable acclaim. However, in practice, the drama of this World War II spy saga seldom lives up to the filmmaker’s lofty aesthetic goals, resulting in a tale of torture and human fragility that flatlines long before its central martyr.

Beginning with colorized footage of the Nazi occupation of France, “Moulin” establishes its historical stakes before having its title character — in disguise as interior designer Jean Martel, and played by a debonair Gilles Lellouche — drop down in his home country via parachute. The painterly night photography and booming soundscape make Moulin’s lonely landing feel like a dangerous tightrope walk, but it’s a long while before the film feels this enrapturing again.

For about the first half of its runtime, “Moulin” unfolds in the style of a Hollywood noir, with hard lighting illuminating the contours of devilishly attractive, silhouetted characters obscured by fedoras and face nets. Cinematographer Mátyás Erdély’s gaslamp wash makes the whole thing visually alluring, but the story up to this point is one of malformed double entendres, as Moulin and his cohorts react to more important plots unfolding elsewhere in the war. There are hints about succession and cults of personality, conversations which raise questions as to whether Moulin is fit to lead, but these are seldom broached beyond their introductions.

It’s only when Moulin is captured by the Gestapo, and interrogated by Lars Eidinger’s fearsome Klaus Barbie (“the Butcher of Lyon”) that the film becomes one of subterfuge, albeit because Moulin refuses to reveal himself to his captors. Perhaps this makes it too little and too late for “Moulin” to feel like a true spy movie, but from that point on, it does at least frame its eponymous hero in unexpected ways.

That Lellouche resembles caricatures drawn by Moulin (such as that of Georges Mandel) more than he does the real man is perhaps a happy accident, but it remains in line with Nemes’ attempts to subvert traditional biopics. Where most tales of war heroes start with flawed figures before making them unimpeachable, “Moulin” does the opposite. It begins with a man who moves through the world like a slick, cinematic hero, only to reveal he is completely ordinary, especially under threat of torture. However, Moulin knows this. He knows he’ll break if pressed too hard — a self-aware outlook seldom held by the protagonists of historical dramas — which is also what makes him utterly, deeply human.

Lellouche’s performance remains in tune with this demythologizing, as he gradually sheds the character’s suave poise in favor of morose resignation. However, the actor does most of the heavy lifting, even as Nemes’ aesthetic approach drowns the frame in striking shadows — a contrast made deep and inviting by Mátyás Erdély’s 35mm photography. It’s a gorgeous-looking film, but one that doesn’t go anywhere anytime soon, given the linearity and literal nature of its approach to human anguish. At over two hours in length, its points are made with clarity before being repeated ad nauseam.

Granted, a film isn’t a dissertation, and a historical retrospective like “Moulin” is as much about the “how” as it is the “what,” but rarely do its scenes unspool with jagged or uncomfortable rhythms. Viewers might feel for Moulin if they know what became of him, but too often, Nemes stops short of actually depicting the evils wrought upon his protagonist — let alone deconstructing the origin of these destructive impulses, vis-à-vis his Nazi characters.

In its hyper-focus on Moulin himself, the film forgets to incorporate the wider world, including and especially the question of who might have betrayed him — a real mystery it half-teases before ignoring. This isn’t Nemes’ suffocating “Son of Saul,” wherein the camera remains transfixed on a single character and point of view. It’s a more traditionally staged drama that draws from midcentury visual conventions to elicit beauty and ugliness in equal measure. Unfortunately, it seldom connects these abstracts to the real and tangible people within its frame.