19/05/2026 - CANNES 2026: Hardboiled French resistance heroes meet despicable Nazis in László Nemes’ return to the World War II era

Gilles Lellouche (left) and Lars Eidinger in Moulin

Moulin, competing at the 79th Cannes International Film Festival, is László Nemes’ Croisette comeback after his 2015 debut feature, the intense Holocaust tale Son of Saul. Come 2026, Nemes returns to World War II, again intensely, albeit somewhat differently.

It’s France in 1943, and we are among the resistance, a place the “Saul” character would gladly have traded for his extermination-camp chores. As often depicted, it’s an exciting and even romantic lifestyle, with cryptic communiqués being exchanged between hardboiled men in Fedoras and emancipated women in berets, enhanced by atmospheric lampposts, wet cobblestones, lipstick, cigarettes and the odd stolen kiss, just because. It’s also pretty close to what we get here as Jean Moulin, codename Max and alias Jacques Martel, arrives from London (by parachute after midnight, as is obligatory) in order to lead the CNR, the body coordinating resistance movements all across France. Gilles Lellouche dons the sturdy Jean Gabin/Lino Ventura/Jean Reno guise, going off on dangerous missions in a setting that could easily have been framed by Jean-Pierre Melville in Army of Shadows mode. Nemes and DoP Mátyás Erdély savour the images (shot on 35 mm), not least the silhouette of Lellouche’s damned near marble-sculpted half profile. A joy to behold, he’s our indomitable Gaul, ready to make life difficult for the invaders.

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Then, as fate would have it, said invaders smell a rat, and as the Gestapo storms into a planned meeting in Lyon, it’s off towards “Saul” territory once more, as Moulin and his legionaries are interned at the Montluc prison, where excruciating brutality ensues. Chief executer and second main character SS-Obersturmführer Klaus Barbie, aka “The Butcher of Lyon”, now enters the scene. Lars Eidinger brings all of the outrageous panache of the well-spoken, refined, capriciously and loudly tantrum-throwing, and utterly despicable baddie from all those renditions we’ve seen through the ages, including the comical ones; one of his Gestapo minions, with a round, albino face and a black hat, could have walked straight out of the humorous TV series 'Allo 'Allo!. The odd chuckle was heard at the press screening; a few walk-outs also occurred. As classical as the resistance heroes are drawn (even singing “La Marseillaise”), the German invaders are stereotypically caricatured, and they’re everything but Mel Brooks, Monty Python or John Cleese. Here, each scream of “Schweinhund!” is most heartlessly honest, with tweezers, wires, drooling Alsatians and other “vays” of making people talk at full throttle. There’s also an ear bitten off, just because. It's real history, with purest evil at work.

Finally perishing after a fortnight of meticulous torture sessions, Jean Moulin kept his secrets safe (being close to De Gaulle, they might have had to do with landings in Normandie). Barbie had some pleasant decades in Latin America (with the CIA’s blessings, quite shamefully), before finally being extradited to France in 1983, which by then (alas?) had abolished capital punishment.

As it often is, some pretty strong meat is being dished out by Nemes and his wide-ranging kitchen, worthy of afterthought and breakdown. Whether a rewatch is imminent is another discussion. This reviewer will gladly abstain for a while.

Moulin was staged by France’s Pitchipoï with co-production by Studio TF1, TF1 Films, Umedia and Montmartre Films. Its world sales are overseen by 193.

Photogallery 17/05/2026: Cannes 2026 - Moulin

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László Nemes, Gilles Lellouche, Louise Bourgoin
© 2026 Fabrizio de Gennaro for Cineuropa - fadege.it, @fadege.it