Intrigued for years about finding an opportunity to see “Z,” the seminal 1969 political drama, a newly restored 35mm print of the first film to be nominated for both Best Picture and Best Foreign Language Film afforded a chance to mesh anticipation and the weight of expectation. “Z” lives up to the acclaim; the potent thriller is pulsating and profound filmmaking. At turns cerebral and virile, it is a thoroughly absorbing account of the assassination of a talismanic opposition politician and the unraveling of the government conspiracy behind the murder. Director Costa-Gavras majestically blends action, discourse and exposition in a completely compelling movie.
“Z” is also adamantly explicit. Costa-Gavras, a Greek national living in France, announces in the credits to his fictional narrative that “Any resemblance to real events, to persons living or dead, is not accidental. It is DELIBERATE.” And one feels a flinching desire to describe this sentiment and the resulting film with the word “provocative.” That’s a funny word, though. It is generally used in the context of expressing a truth. But why isn’t verity neutral? And what is the starting point when exposing a truth is provocative?
The film opens with the immediacy of a Spaghetti Western with quick-flash credits and Mikis Theodorakis’ urgent score. In an unspecified European country, dark-blue suited bureaucrats and drab-green uniformed soldiers sit in an unremarkable meeting room, the camera fixing tight shots on bloodless eyes as they listen to “The General.“ Festooned absurdly with rows of medals, the desk-bound military man passionately translates how to eradicate a mildew epidemic into a metaphoric diatribe about how to “heal the infected parts” of their society. Concurrently, the political opposition feverishly organizes for a massive rally. But covert government pressure results in a succession of cancelled meeting halls. The opposition leadership learns of a plot to murder their leader, an eminent ex-Olympian known as the Doctor who is returning that day from an overseas trip to address the rally. (The part is played by the dashing Yves Montand, who possesses the countenance and carriage of a career politician but with a mischievous twinkle in his eye.) Without his consultation, the opposition leaders inform the police of the death threat. Into this cauldron, the Bolshoi Ballet has alighted, providing a convenient excuse for police to be stretched throughout the city.
In a stupendous set-piece from Costa-Gavras, a violent confrontation erupts that evening between hundreds in the streets surrounding the only modest venue the opposition could secure for the Doctor’s speech. “Long Live the Bomb” shout the frothing right-wingers, with sideburns the size of scouring brushes. The fresh-faced acolytes of the opposition retort, “No More NATO bases.” There is a police presence at the rally but it is a phantom phalanx. Costa-Gavras ratchets up the drama as the sequence escalates. As the charismatic Doctor begins to speak to a crowded room inside, his voice resonates through the plaza from speakers hung from trees in the square. The camera retreats from the speech and returns to the melee outside. A compatriot of the leader is savagely attacked and then stowed away because he is mistaken for the Doctor; when the hoods discover their error, he is tossed unconscious into a deserted street as the defiant utterances of the address resonate. When the Doctor concludes his speech and enters the square, the tension is frenetic. Following the attack, the getaway vehicle flees and a dynamic action sequences ensues. The fight between one of the culprits and an opposition loyalist in the cramped bed of rickety 3-wheel truck is riveting, with the two bodies lurching precariously, hands gouging at faces and then grasping onto the thin side panels for safety as the truck zooms through the streets to a soundtrack of insistent, booming drumming.
Jean-Louis Trintignant plays the Examining Magistrate, who has been chosen by the Public Prosecutor (François Périer) to oversee an expected cursory, rubberstamped investigation into the death. The Magistrate wears perpetual dark shades that frame a placid face. He’s no crusader; he simply follows the facts, and these revelations, like any great investigative enterprise, illustrate how small incidental tidbits can lead to massive exposés. Simultaneously, a cocky, enterprising photojournalist with no political bent (Jacques Perrin, think Omar Sharif as a member of The Monkees) is snooping successfully, skulking with his camera welded to his right hand through alleyways and sneaking into beaten witnesses hospital rooms.
Costa-Gavras imposes a forceful forward momentum onto the movie as the Magistrate breaks down the elements of the crime, discovers the depths of the cover-up and, subsequently, endures menacingly overt pressure from the highest levels of government. But Costa-Gavras still graces the film with refined, reflective touches. Irene Papas is not asked to speak more than a few sentences as Helene, the Doctor’s widow, but in an unspoken moment she is an absolute expression of grief. After the Magistrate has announced the charges, one of the Doctor’s closest confidantes runs excitedly through a grove of trees along a coastal path to a shaded retreat where Helene is seated. Breathlessly, he says that her husband lives through the spirit of the resistance, that the government is toppling, and, he insinuates, that his death provided an impetus for the political change he so desired when he was alive. Helene turns away, and in her sorrowful eyes we see that she feels that no political victory can usurp the value of a human life and, conversely, that no human life is worth harming in the name of politics.
The conclusion at the final credits leaves a viewer crestfallen yet not surprised. It is a consequence of the subject matter of the film and the 1967 novel by Vassilis Vassilikos the movie is based upon. Greece was ruled by a military dictatorship from 1967 to 1974; Vassilikos lived in exile for those 7 years. If “Z” must be truthful about undemocratic political machinations, the abject disregard for liberty, and the callous seizure of power then how could Costa-Gavras give it a righteous ending, let alone a happy one?
