Tuesday, July 29, 2003

Z

This is quite unique. It's a French film based on the assassination of a prominent Greek senator in the 1960s who leaned too far to the left for the majority of the population. The government tries to cover up the assassination, initially calling it an "accident," while a judge and a journalist try to get at the truth. The most chilling part of the film is the last one minute, which I won't give away here. I will say that the film is part mystery and part thriller, with a lot of exposition which could be considered boring by some. Costa-Gavras' strength lies in how he puts together the pieces of the story, both on a broad story-arc level and at the scenic level. In one scene, he shows government officials being indicted by the judge, but instead of showing you just one official as an example he shows them all, filmed nearly exactly the same. Naturally after the third official we get the point, but the repetition drives home how involved the government was in the tragedy.

year: 1969
length: 127 min.
rating: 3.5
IMDB link: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0065234/combined

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