Z

Z; art-film / thriller, France / Algeria, 1969; D: Costa Gavras, S: Jean-Louis Trintignant, Yves Montand, Pierre Dux, François Périer, Jacques Perrin, Marcel Bozzuffi, Charles Denner, Irene Papas

An unnamed country. The right-wing dictatorship plans to locate American nuclear weapons at their military bases. Doctor Z is the pacifist leader of a left-wing opposition party that opposes any foreign nuclear weapons, regardless from which country, and wants democracy in the country, but the military junta in charge forbids them to find a building where they could hold their speech. When they finally find a location, the police passively lets troublemakers in until some Vago from his van hits Z on the head with a stick, and flees the scene. Z dies. Vago gets arrested accidentally, but the police and the military sabotage the investigation so that he could be pronounced innocent. The investigator discovers that the murder was ordered by high ranking officials of the regime, so he indicts them. At the trial, they get acquitted of all charges, while all the witnesses get mysteriously murdered.

Although its title consists just out of one letter, political (art)-thriller "Z" is not at all an acronym of its possibilities; an excellent film with bravura directing by Costa Gavras who shaped the whole story as a sly allegory on the Greek military junta from '67 to '74, which is why the sole disclaimer is already ironical by stating: "Any resemblance to real events, to persons living or dead, is not accidental. It's DELIBERATE". It is a real film for grown ups since the plot does not have a real hero but is full of episodic characters (the title doctor dies already half an hour into the film, so the witnesses, a reporter, and a public prosecutor continue the story to try to investigate what happened) and lives only from observations and intelligent contemplation on the side effects of the Cold War, whereas it is also slightly overlong, but due to its extremely elaborated details it can be outstandingly presented as a study of injustice, corruption, greed for power and dictatorship: the scenes where the police just passively stands while a hooligan hits the leader of the opposition party, a doctor, and runs away to hide in the mob; the end when all witnesses who were to testify against the regime die from mysterious circumstances, etc. Even the reporter, the host of the news, disappears in the montage and gets replaced, while the new government-approved reporter announces all the banned people, including Sophocles, Mark Twain and Euripides. An hour into the film, the story loses steam, since the investigation process becomes dry at times, displaying only conventional writing, yet Gavras crafts a fascinating visual style and documentary feel that gets everything right down to a T. "Z" is an extremely stylistic, vibrant, creative and electrifying achievement, superior to a huge majority of stiff art-films, and has some genuine ingenuity of the author which makes it a small jewel.

Grade:+++