Hotel Terminus: The Life and Times of Klaus Barbie

Released 1988
Directed by Marcel Ophuls

Meandering through "Hotel Terminus: The Life and Times of Klaus Barbie," I felt two sensations that do not ordinarily go together. One was a sense of outrage, and the other was the hypnotic rhythm of a repetitive process. The movie records a tireless search by Marcel Ophuls, a documentary filmmaker who went looking for anyone who could tell him about Klaus Barbie, the Nazi war criminal from France who became known as the "Butcher of Lyon." By the end of the film we know a lot about Barbie, and a lot about Ophuls.

Over and over, during the course of the film, people protest that Ophuls is asking questions about things that happened "over 40 years ago." If that were true, it would not be a reason to avoid asking the questions. But it is not true. The whole point of the movie is that Barbie's war did not end with everyone else's, with the defeat of Nazi Germany. Barbie was one of the lucky ones whose skills (mostly torture and interrogation) were useful to the postwar Allies in their fight against communism. So he was sheltered from charges of war crimes, used by various agencies (most notably the CIA), and eventually provided with a new identity and resettled in South America - where he continued to practice his torturer's trade.

Barbie was eventually located and denounced by anti-Nazi groups, was extradited by Bolivia, stood trial in Germany, was convicted of war crimes including the sentencing of 41 orphans to Nazi war camps, and is serving a life sentence. "Hotel Terminus" is not about his capture, trial and conviction. It is about how people remember him.

Summary by Roger Ebert