“The Man in the Basement” sounds like a horror movie, doesn’t it? And that ominous title is well-matched by an edgy score, tense editing, and a tough-to-watch buildup of pressure. But in Philippe Le Guay’s sharp French drama it’s the dead who need rescuing and the living who must save them. What’s more, the only weapons used are words.
So, is this a ghost story? Not in the traditional sense. In fact, Le Guay’s concerns are very much of the present. Simon Sandberg (Jérémie Renier, “Saint Laurent”), a liberal Jewish father in Paris, sells a cellar space below his apartment to a kindly, recently retired history teacher.