The Swiss drama “A Forgotten Man” is an intriguing if not wholly satisfying dip into a piece of little debated history, Switzerland’s dubious “neutrality” during World War II.

Writer-director Laurent Nègre, inspired by a play by Thomas Hürlimann, seeks to address Swiss “good for business” complicity and collusion with Nazi Germany. We engage in that debate through the story of two “forgotten” (especially outside of Switzerland) men whose fates were intertwined thanks to the opportunistic bankers and industrialists that “run” the country, and either turned a blind eye to crimes against humanity, or secretly goose-stepped along with it when the world wasn’t watching.

One man was Hans Frölicher, the Swiss ambassador to Nazi Germany and a figure who had a hand in facilitating Swiss business ties with the Third Reich. His name was changed to Heinrich Zwygart in the play “The Envoy” and for the movie. The other was theology student and would-be Hitler assassin Maurice Bavaud, whom the Swiss state and its German ambassador declined to help when he was arrested for not-quite-going-through-with-his-attempt to kill Adolf Hitler in 1938.

Bavaud’s Wikipedia biography details his family’s and later the Swiss government’s attempts to rehabilitate and Swiss-wash a disturbed young man’s dubious, Russian monarchist motives for attempting what he lost the nerve to try.

Zwygart, played with a growing resentment and secret torment by Michael Neuenschwander, is depicted as a man who dashes home from Bavaria — where the German government fled after Hitler’s death — covering his tracks and burning papers, but seemingly confident of his reception back in Geneva.

But in Nègre’s film, Zwygart is tormented by visions of the very young and silent Bavaud (Victor Poltier), the would-be assassin he took no steps to save or have transferred to Swiss custody.

As he renews his connection to family and takes visits from a Hitler-fan publisher (Dominik Gysin) who wants him to write his memoirs, Zwygart quickly picks up on the arms’ length that his own government is keeping between itself and its German ambassador.

A relative who got into business with the Nazis and others may be furious that an “unconditional surrender” will let the Germans off the hook for all they owe the Swiss, for raw materials, machine parts and the like.

“But you guaranteed Goering’s trustworthiness (in German with English subtitles)!”

But Zwygart starts to wonder if his own state is setting him up as the “fall guy” for Swiss sins ranging from supplying and feeding Germany to laundering German-looted cash and Jewish assets via their banking system, which isn’t touched on here.

Nègre’s script ably recreates the tightrope the Swiss walked to stay fat, rich and independent after Germany conquered most of the rest of Europe. In the Zwygart house, Heinrich and his aged military father (Peter Wyssbrod) converse in German, where the son rolls his eyes at the old man’s assertion that “Our army kept us free!” One and all treat that as a “myth” the Swiss told still tell themselves.

But Heinrich’s wife (Manuela Biedermann) and college-age daughter (Cléa Eden) speak French, as wife Clara wonders how “Berlin changed you” and aspiring London chiropractor Helene introduces a French-speaking boyfriend (Yann Philipona) who wants to “interview” Ambassador Zwygart, and perhaps even confront him.

Nègre — “Confusion” and “Operation Casablanca” were his — walks his own tightrope, angling towards a Swiss reckoning over its national guilt, but pulling his punches as often as not. He leans just hard enough on the whole Bavaud plotline to play the “But look, one of our guys tried to SHOOT Hitler” card. And he’s more than willing to have an American official reinforce the “you’re excused” attitude that dismissed any swift reckoning for Swiss complicity simply because they were “democratic” and stable on a now-half-communist continent.

But “A Forgotten Man” still makes for a most watchable account of a country that may have “gotten it from both sides” during the war, which acted out of self-preservation and self-interst, but which got an undeserved pass for its selective, opportunistic views of “neutrality.”

Rating: R, nudity

Cast: Michael Neuenschwander, Manuela Biedermann, Cléa Eden, Yann Philipona, Peter Wyssbrod,
Dominik Gysin and Victor Poltier

Credits: Scripted and directed by Laurent Nègre, inspired by a play by Thomas Hürlimann. A Sovereign release.

Running time: 1:25