The Clearstream Affair

The ultimate financial thriller about the "dark side of multinational corporations", about several years of investigating the flow of money with countless characters. Nevertheless, it is straightforward, exciting, the pace is frantic, it is full of twists and turns and the performances are magnificent. But still, I feel unhappy that it does not keep distance. You know, I mean the promotional bullshit, actors and directors praising each other during the first screening, and a decade later there are much more willing to share what they really think about the movie and its creation? So this is the same thing, because this case has so many aspects that remain unknowns until today that it will take some time for everything to come to light. It's like seeing the first half of a football match, after which the result is 1:0 in favor of team A and then, without seeing the other half, knowing that the team B won three to one, even thanks to one penalty. But you don't know anything about the course of the second half of the match, whether the penalty was (not) justified, how teams played, whether this result of the match will "indirectly" help someone else, whether it might have been corrupt (not) and whether betting agencies might have been involved... The Clearstream affair is exactly like that. It would be wise to leave it for a decade or two, so that more people would not be afraid to speak and that the intentions of stakeholders would be clear, wait until some evidence comes up etc. I must stress again, however, that from a purely genre-cinematic point of view, it is simply perfect, providing you get over the “typically French-leftist" stylization of Robert depicted as a martyrdom victim of the of the evil state power, when judicial and financial forces back each other. The whole judicial aspect of the affair was based more on whether an investigative journalist has the authority to come to one-sided conclusions and make accusations without having any evidence and having only suspicion (however reasonable) and who is not willing to reveal his sources? So it wasn't nearly as black and white as it's presented here, but it is the case of the contradiction between reality and facts versus genre requirements again. (11/20/2015)