France, Algeria, 1969
Directed by Costa-Gavras
With Jean-Louis Trintignant (the investigating judge), Jacques Perrin (the press photographer), Pierre Dux (the gendarmerie general), Julien Guiomar (the police force general), François Périer (the chief prosecutor), Yves Montand (the politician), Irène Papas (the politician’s wife), Marcel Bozzuffi (Vago), Renato Salvatori (Yago)
Z, to be pronounced “zei”, means in ancient Greek “he (or she) is alive”. The alive and kicking man the film follows during the first part is a leading politician of a modern country very much like Greece who has traveled to a middle-sized town to speak to his local supporters. But finding a location to hold the meeting proves difficult and once a rather ill-fitted building is chosen it becomes the scene of a violent demonstration against him. The politician is himself attacked, a first time before giving his speech and a second time right after the meeting, when a man standing on a motored tricycle speeding out of nowhere bludgeons him. After an unsuccessful surgery he dies.
Z. Young people take to the streets the morning after the incident to voice their anger, and once the death is confirmed they keep demonstrating claiming he is alive. They form the explosive background of the investigation led by a young judge who discovers from the start, with the autopsy, that getting the true facts is going to be highly difficult, and made even tougher by members of the authorities he is supposed to work with. The clever interrogation of Vago, one of the two men rightfully suspected of committing the homicide (the other is named Yago), leads him to focus on fringe right-wing groups which have discreet links with the police and the gendarmerie. The magistrate is not the only person seeking the truth: another young and dashing guy leads his own inquiry, a young press photographer whose skills and intelligence helps him casting light on some awkward persons and shoring up the judge’s findings. They eventually send to prison the real instigators of the politician’s killing, who are the senior commanders of the local police and gendarmerie.
Edited with a fast-paced rhythm and remarkable intelligence, the film feels like a compelling thriller. But it is first and foremost a political film whose settings are not unlike the 1960s Greece; indeed the credits at one point claim that any resemblance with historical facts is deliberate. The film, like the novel by Vassilis Vassilikos it adapts, offers an interpretation of the assassination of in May 1963 in Thessaloniki of a leader of the Greek left, Grigoris Lambrakis, a tragic event that fueled the political instability of a nation that never fully recovered from the civil war that followed World War Two (and was also concerned by the tricky situation of Cyprus). It marks the beginning for Costa-Gavras of a string of movies dealing with politics and history, examining with chilling accuracy and scathing clear-sightedness the mechanism and the crimes of authoritarian powers and institutions. In this case, the stubbornly illiberal and ruthless dishonesty of a confident security apparatus is clearly cast as the real danger and its responsibilities are paintstakingly established.
The famous opening sequence, with the Agriculture Minister explaining how to fight against the mildew in the fields before the gendarmerie general describing what another kind of mildew needing to eliminate, sets the tone: the center stage is held by reactionary institutions despising not only leftist ideas but also new social behaviors and keen on protecting a traditional vision of the society, even if implies far-fetched ideas (like the one holding that black stains multiply on the surface of the sun because Jews and Communists are gaining ground, changing nature’s balance – the general in the novel offers even more foolish explanations). But the series of intense close-ups on the soldiers’ faces, showcasing depending on the case, age, boredom, sleep, or stupidity, implies at a devastating sense of irony that makes the political statement not a dry affair but a passionate pleading. Their petty obsession for conservative law and ruthless order stands in stark contrast with the generous calls for peace and investment in social development the politician quietly pitches to his supporters.
Clear-cut and lively dialogues and a carefully organized screenplay make the various dimensions of the affair easy to understand without going too far into oversimplification, at least compared to the novel. The main difference is that the book pays great attention to the feelings of the characters in a lyrical language. The movie tries not to overlook the individual complexity of the politician, giving him a more tragic aura, but is firmly intent on exposing how a political crime is thought and carried out in a supposedly civilized society and how it is actually undermined by dangerous institutions. The depiction is blunt and compelling, pointing at the grim game of pressures and threats that can be played by any authority, especially in a poverty-stricken, tradition-bound polity (a few anecdotes are enough to describe the value of patronage and the weight of conventional ideas) and at the terribly efficient way it can plan and carry out its actions.
This depiction, however harsh and painful it is, does not preclude an optimistic outcome as the narrative moves forward with its real heroes (who by the way are not then big stars who catch the attention; the noted contribution of world-famous actors Yves Montand and Irène Papas is a modest affair lasting a fraction of the running time, but their names make an impression on the posters). They are a few stubborn men, keen on getting the truth out, proving that they may be still enough to challenge an entire state apparatus: a judge, a journalist and a few witnesses willing to speak no matter what. The ending, however, is sad as it is made clear the punishments are rather lenient for the guilty ones while the voices that have spoken out are silenced one way or another. Fighting a political, illiberal, threat is a depressingly endless and tough task, Costa-Gavras concludes, but he has still successfully made a rigorous, and finely shot and edited, expose of what this threat looks like.