A Self-made Hero 1996

In the final months of a war that he has not fought in, a man decides to become a hero. Or rather to impersonate a hero... to invent a better, richer, and more admirable life than the one he has.

At a time of turmoil in the alien Paris of winter 1944/1945, he becomes a virtuoso liar and, via omissions and allusions, builds up a remarkable character. After succeeding in entering the Resistance movement, he is called upon to hold an important post in the French occupation zone in Germany.

This man, who is in fact someone else and who had nothing, will obtain everything: honours, admiration, friendship, power, love... but for how long?

Is it a crime to want the fake to be more real than the real, fiction to be more beautiful than reality when you are a self-made hero?