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This is an extraordinary documentary that unfolds like a mystery novel, a mystery about how a brilliant lawyer who speaks impeccable French and fought for France under DeGaulle became the attorney for many of the top terrorists and reprehensible figures of our time. It is also a mystery about the attraction to terrorism, and a mystery about what this lawyer, Jacques Verges -- infamous in France -- did when he went missing for eight years in the 1970s.

Was he, during that time, working for the French secret service, the Stasi, the most extreme Palestinian terrorists, Pol Pot, Carlos the Jackal?

In the end, we are still left pondering the question.

The dapper Verges, speaking in precise upper-class French, usually with an unlit cigar in his hand, weaves together the riveting story of his life (without disclosing the nature of his missing years) with a combination of graciousness, smugness, arrogance, charm, and lucid explanation. But, of course, it is his perspective that he is offering as the lawyer for himself before the cameras of famed French filmmaker Barbet Schroeder.

Schroeder intersperses Verges's first person account of his life (born of a Vietnamese mother and French father and raised on the French island of Reunion as a Communist) with captivating recollections from former terrorists about their interaction and knowledge of Verges, so as to offer a counterbalance to a riveting but self-serving memoir.

Verges's roots as an "advocate for terrorists" started with the Algerian independence movement and his defense of their most noted symbol and heroine, Djamila Bouhired, who blew up a French cafe in Algiers (as depicted in the film "Battle of Algiers"). She was caught, tortured and sentenced to death, but Verges launched what became known as a "rupture defense" (basically that the French courts had no jurisdiction over his defendants) and an international campaign that saved her life. Eventually, he married Bouhired and fathered two children with her before abandoning his family to join one or another terrorist networks -- as a presumed strategist, only to resurface as a lawyer for the most infamous terrorists eight years later. Carlos, Klaus Barbie, and the Baader-Meinhof gang were among his clients.

Unless one views this film, it is hard to explain how riveting it is to watch the congenial, seemingly logical Verges contrasted with the deaths and mangled bodies left behind by the people that he defended. Verges remains a Communist -- of the Maoist kind as compared to the old Soviet model, he informs us -- and justifies his legal representation with the notion that colonial nations, such as France, committed torture and killing in Algeria in the name of the state, so that terrorists who rebel against such actions with bloodshed are justified in their actions.

Of course, one can argue that both sides are to be condemned for having killed in the name of "justice." But that does not figure into Verges's anti-colonial worldview.

At some point in the documentary, when Verges falls in love yet again with a terrorist, this time the wife of Carlos, that he is an intellectual who is energized and impassioned by the thrill of being associated with terrorism. But that is our call.

Barbet Schroeder the famed French director has this take on Verges's life after he left Algiers in an interview posted here:

Could you talk a little about the film’s structure?

"The entire film takes place as follows: there’s a magnificent, heroic heart, which is Algeria. This is the matrix, the place where our lead character finds himself, reveals himself, experiences the most intense moments of his life. Here is also where he lives out the most beautiful love story imaginable. All of this is something very beautiful, very pure: an ideal. Then, with Algerian independence, everything stops and our protagonist finds himself, in my view, without the possibility of carrying on. But for the rest of his life he yearns to recapture these moments, or something very close to them, whatever the price. Often in our lives, there’s something very pure, and then later things are corrupted. But what’s interesting is that these things become corrupted when they are desired to remain pure. It’s almost paradoxical, because in fact, it’s by wanting to relive this extraordinary love story he shared with Djamila that he goes on to live something entirely ridiculous in comparison with his first love. The story repeats itself as a grotesque caricature. This is the theme of Hitchcock’s “Vertigo” (and one which I explored in “Our Lady of the Assassins”) where the main character yearns to relive that which has absolutely not the same quality the second time. It’s pathetic and painful at the same time. Thus we discover that terrorism itself follows a similar evolutionary path to that of our protagonist."

The documentary is accompanied by a compelling musical store that touches just the right notes, so to speak -- and has great archival footage and photos.

How Schroeder got access to so many former terrorists is remarkable in itself. They are generally just older people now, who talk candidly about their actions and Verges.

One side note about the documentary is this. How quickly we have forgotten that terrorism has been with us for decades. It did not begin on 9/11. Battling terrorism is something that, unfortunately, will always be with us.

As a Communist in an age when Communism has collapsed as an ideology, Verges is stalwart and fascinating, but largely now a historical figure. He no doubt would be delighted to take you out for a four star French dinner and spend the evening as a spellbinding raconteur. There's no question that he shares in the French joie de vivre, except in his case it involves having advocated for people who leave a lot of bodies in their wake, including Nazis.

For people who enjoy understanding the political history of terrorism in the last half century prior to the rise of al-Qaeda, this is a mesmerizing documentary.

If Verges were a guilt-ridden soul, it would not be as gripping. But because his self-assured satisfaction with his life beguiles us, despite the horrors of what he legally fought for, the documentary is as thought-provoking as it is haunting.

Nevertheless, Verges, who is still very much alive, has a grim sense of humor. Asked how he could possibly represent this rogue's gallery of villains, he responded something like, "I would even represent Bush, if he admitted to me that he were guilty."

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