Petrifying `Petiot'

Doctor Petiot

directed by Christian de Chalonge

at the Harvard Film Archive

through October 22

This week the Harvard Film Archive brings us "Docteur Petiot," the chilling, fact-based story of a physician turned serial killer during the chaotic days of Nazi occupation in Paris. Seamlessly uniting art and reality, Dr. Petiot borrows elements of documentary, horror and black comedy to unveil the evil of the "good doctor."

The brilliant opening scene, appropriately set in a movie theater, sets up the strange dialectic between fact and fiction when Dr. Petiot, unimpressed by the evil of the vampire on screen, mutters his disapproval: "This is ridiculous and clumsy." As the camera freezes the doctor's shadow, the viewer is invited to compare the distorted figure of the bug-eyed vampire to the well-groomed physician. Castles and cauldrons are not the doctor's style. He jumps on to the stage and into the screen to show us how real evil works.

Seemingly the model of altruistic behavior, Dr. Petiot promises to help his Jewish patients to escape to South America. He lures them to his home with all their valuables, administers a deadly "vaccination," and burns the bodies in a basement incinerator. Patient after patient puts his trust in the doctor only to find himself waiting, in a tiny room filled with the belongings of other victims, for the lethal injection to take its toll.

The centerpiece of the film is Michel Serrault's stunning performance as the infamous doctor. He plays the murdering madman perfectly, prancing about gleefully as he empties the pockets of his dying patients, but he shows his real talent in the scenes where the delicate facade of the doctor threatens to break down. In spite of himself, the doctor punches a patient in the stomach to see whether an ulcer is improving, closes doors on his patients' feet, and seems more hurried and harried than he should be. But his patients, unlike the audience, never suspect a thing, and the mortality rates of Dr. Petiot's patients reach alarming proportions.

Sucking the blood of all who cross him, Dr. Petiot changes his costume to meet the demands of the time. Whether Dr. Petiot or disguised as some other man by day, he is always a villain by night. The black cape, dark circles under the eyes, and devilish eyebrows render the doctor not so different from the vampire of the film's early moments. Scorning sleep, Dr. Petiot declares his preference for night and chaos, "What I like about this war...you're plunged into real darkness."

The chaos and violence expertly rendered by Serrault are reiterated, throughout the film, by haunting music and startling images. Shots fire in a posh Paris arcade. A man plays a saw with a violin bow. Naked men chase women in Gestapo uniforms. Focusing relentlessly on objects of horror, the camera captures the greenish grey tone of the film and uncovers the ghoulishness of even the most serene images. After a Jew is beaten and taken from his home, the picture-perfect image of the house of the Jew and the house of his neighbor standing identical, side by side, underlines the basic hypocrisy and evil that the film endeavors to explore.

An excellent script, joined with the accomplished performance of Serrault and the sensitive direction of Christian de Chalonge, make this a masterful film about sanity and madness, good and evil, and the strange connections between them. When at the end Dr. Petiot tries to elude police by jumping through a movie screen again, the film has come full circle. The final scene--showing the "inventory of evidence," the luggage that Petiot's victims had intended to bring to South America--has the feel of a Holocaust documentary. But here the killer has a voice, as he pleads for understanding: "I am a voyager who takes his baggage with him."