Director Barbet Schroeder explores the enigmatic Vergès in “Terror’s Advocate,” a clear-eyed documentary that debuted to raves in Cannes last month and hits French movie theaters this week. Schroeder has a history of examining the ethos of “monsters,” as he calls them: in 1974 he directed a riveting documentary on Ugandan dictator Idi Amin, and in 1990 he was nominated for the best director Oscar for “Reversal of Fortune,” about the British socialite, Claus von Bülow, accused of murdering his wife, Sunny. But Vergès intrigued Schroeder more than he could have imagined. “I couldn’t wait to get to the editing room every morning,” Schroeder told NEWSWEEK in Cannes. “It was like a page-turning spy novel spread over eight months.”
At first, Schroeder says, Vergès’s motives for defending terrorists had merit: he truly believed in the anticolonial fight. Then one day in 1970, Vergès disappeared without warning or apparent reason. He remained silent and unseen for eight years.
Vergès himself has implied that he spent much of that time holed up in Cambodia, protected by his college friend Pol Pot. During two years of research, however, Schroeder found evidence that Vergès remained in Europe and may have been involved in covert government activities. While Vergès was in hiding, terrorism exploded: among other things, Palestinian militants massacred 11 Israeli athletes at the Munich Olympics and a terrorist known as Carlos the Jackal waged bombing campaigns in Paris. As Schroeder discovered, many of the seemingly independent players in terrorist activities were actually linked. And when Vergès reappeared in 1978, many of them turned to him for counsel. “His client list reads like a Who’s Who of terrorism,” Schroeder says.
Schroeder, 65, made the film with Vergès’s cooperation—“He was very enthusiastic,” the director says—and some of the most revealing passages are of Vergès pontificating about his career in his grand Parisian law office. Through a mix of interviews and news clips, Schroeder shows how Vergès’s motivations appeared to shift over time. “He lost his illusions of changing the world,” Schroeder says. “Now he likes to create disorder. He’s a troublemaker. And I think he enjoys it.” Schroeder points to classified Stasi documents showing that Vergès may have been involved in organizing terrorist campaigns, including the Entebbe hijackings. “Betrayal is a recurring theme of his life,” Schroeder says. That’s no doubt a charge that Vergès would defend.
