Educational Media Reviews Online

Je Suis Charlie begins by showing the news footage of the millions of people who took to the streets of Paris following the January 2015 attacks against the satirical weekly journal Charlie Hebdo, a police officer and a Jewish market that left seventeen people dead. The filmmakers state their intention to honor the victims of the attacks, particularly the creators and staff of Charlie Hebdo, by documenting the lead up to and subsequent reaction to the murders.

Eight years before the attacks, Charlie Hebdo was sued by a Muslim group after the magazine had portrayed pictures of the Prophet Mohammad to support a Danish paper that had done the same. With archival footage from that trial period, Je Suis Charlie introduces some of the victims of the 2015 attack—Charb, Cabu, Tignous and Wolinski, who explain their actions and beliefs while defending their publication. The narrator suggests that, although they won the trial, Charlie Hebdo was marginalized by the public until the massacre in January 2015.

Following this background, the film returns to the events of January 2015, tracing the massacre day by day through interviews with the survivors and television footage. Just as the first section of the film gives voice to the victims, this next section makes palpable the horror the survivors experience. Cartoonist Coco is forced at gunpoint to open the Charlie Hebdo office where she and other survivors witness the systematic and selective shootings of their colleagues by terrorists in support of Al Qaeda in Yemen. Within two days a police officer is killed and a Jewish market is attacked. Je Suis Charlie signs begin appearing everywhere: “I am Charlie, I’m a cop, I’m Jewish.”

Je Suis Charlie then follows the surviving Charlie Hebdo staff as they decide to put out the next edition of their paper. They sell 8 million copies. Despite this initial support, a backlash soon appears to the extent that a former staff member even suggests that Charlie Hebdo had asked for the attack. The filmmakers, however, are clear in their stance, and make a moving case for their support of Charlie Hebdo, journalists, cartoonists and freedom of expression.

Je Suis Charlie is well edited. Its fast-paced day-by-day accounting of the events creates an almost “you are there” atmosphere that accentuates both the horror of the attacks and the importance of the press and freedom of expression. The cartoons shown throughout the film are translated with text, but the focus of the film is clearly on the writers and artists rather than on the content of their work.