Bernard-Henri Lévy

The Oath of Tobruk

It all began with a magic eye whose powers of transformation BHL and I, being laymen in the field, could not imagine, one that would create a living memorial of this Libyan adventure.               

I am referring to a «5 D» digital camera, state of the art technology, which, by merely pressing a button, turns into a “full HD” video camera of exceptional quality.

BHL leaves at the beginning of March, 2011, via Egypt, for a Libya at war, accompanied by photo-journalist Marc Roussel, assigned by the New York Times Syndicate to provide the photos while BHL himself covers the story.

Marc Roussel takes one shot after another and, from time to time, depending on the circumstances and what he feels like doing at the moment, turns the camera to video for the fun of it, instinctively, without any preconceived idea and without telling us.  One night in Benghazi, where we have a little free time, he shows us the images.  BHL is amazed at their quality and their power.  The idea of a film begins to take shape.  And then, given the events we are living through, the people we meet, the places we are allowed to go, the idea becomes clearer and then becomes imperative—up until the day in May, in Paris, when BHL personally takes over the film project.          

In retrospect, my only regret is that we didn’t have this in mind from the start and thus let certain poignant or important scenes slip away.

Thanks to this perfectly light, perfectly discreet and unobtrusive cinema camera, which allowed us to film actual events live, in action, in movement, everywhere, without any preparation or anticipation, we would be able to amass a flood of images, real life action shots, that would ultimately engender a film in the first person, as true to life, as personal as a writer’s journal.                

A producer, François Margolin, would then join the project, identifying with it to such an extent that, from then on, he joined us in the field, right up to the end of the adventure.

A film of this kind is hard to describe.  It’s both a documentary and “pure” cinema.  It blends the raw record that is the event as it is shot, live, with historical archive.  It mixes images from the past and the present.  It goes from information to reflection, from the immediate context of the war and the exact chronicle of events to the History that these events recall.  It goes from politics to personal memories, to the narrator’s memory.   

The narrator in question is none other than BHL, whose voice-over commentary gives a literary dimension to what is playing out in images of the Libyan war and the western intervention, as he supported them and remained with them for seven long months.  A film that is at once very political and very subjective.  The film of a politically committed intellectual.  A film in which the politico-diplomatic and military activism of a writer can fully be seen.          

For the images are compelling, much more so than a book.  It is, indeed, impressive to see and hear the main Libyan political and military protagonists of this war of liberation, as well as the major western leaders, converse with BHL, take on then and there a joint action, or evoke their respective roles or his.
Most of the film takes place in Libya, in Cyrenaica, in the Jebel Nefussa, and in Tripoli.  But it also takes us to the Elysée, to New York, to Istanbul, Dakar, Washington, and London.   

The film’s editing, with Vojta Janiska for the visuals and Laurent Jaïs for the sound, would take five months.

A few scenes of this film would be unclassifiable, standing out as stories of war in which, as is the law of the genre, the narrative and the action are one.                  

The decisive scene where BHL proposes straight out to the President of the NTC, back against the wall before Kadhafi’s offensive on Benghazi, to call the Elysée and to have the NTC recognized by France.

The phone call to Sarkozy that follows.

The walk at nightfall through the ruins of Misrata, the suffering city surrounded by Kadhafi’s forces.

The visits to the outposts on the fronts of Ajdabiya and of Abdul Raouf.

Kadhafi’s underground palaces.                     

BHL’s arrival on Green Square, in a liberated Tripoli, to the sound of Kalashnikov shots of joy fired in the air.       

The interview with Hillary Clinton, at the State Department in Washington, and with David Cameron in the Cabinet Room at Downing Street.            

The archives of the Second Armoured Division and the oath, at Kufra, in 1941, to liberate France.                                              

The feet in a circle around Kadhafi’s corpse in the morgue at Misrata. 

The French cemetery at Tobruk and the oath, in the small hours of the morning, of the six French and Libyan protagonists of the film, to stick together until the victory of democracy.                 

The title of the film is taken from this scene.

Gilles Hertzog

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