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The snapshot of Lambrakis' Greece set in an unnamed monarchy portrayed by the Algiers of Pontecorvo would have pleased Brecht, "any resemblance to actual persons or events is not accidental." The Strangelovian opening finds military officers snoozing through a fellow right-winger's jejune metaphor (liberalism as "mildew") and introduces the staccato Costa-Gavras rhythm. "The new opposition" is a pacifist deputy (Yves Montand) whose rally triggers a collision of protesters and hired thugs, a Bolshoi Ballet performance is the other big event in town. Inflamed crowds and complicit police, the lethal blow from a pair of hoodlums (Renato Salvatori, Marcel Bozzuffi) is "a stupid traffic accident" until the dogged magistrate (Jean-Louis Trintignant) gets on the case. "An old rule of thumb is to always look for those who benefit from a crime." Multiple vantage points splinter the incident, replayed in slow-mo and freeze-framed until the assassination emerges as the center of a whirlwind of dictatorial corruption. Comrades (Bernard Fresson, Charles Denner, Clotilde Joano) and widow (Irene Papas), the glib young photographer (Jacques Perrin) and the witness (Georges Géret) who prefers soccer to politics, swift impressions for Raoul Coutard's seething camera. A forward thrust of outrage—panning and circling and cutting on movement, scrambling for facts before they're steamrolled into the Official Story. ("Break his halo," thunders the General of the new martyr.) Intimidations in plain sight, such is the authoritarian system anywhere, plus a comical side to go with its paranoia (Bozzuffi click-heel jumps at the sight of a pinball hunk, then menaces a hospitalized informant while hobbling on a cartoonish leg cast). Costa-Gavras ends on the fantasy of chestfuls of medals huffing and puffing in the face of indictment before the cold shower of history, "une vraie révolution" strangled in the crib. "The brain's destroyed but the heart's beating." With François Périer, Pierre Dux, Magali Noël, Jean Bouise, Julien Guiomar, and Jean Dasté.
--- Fernando F. Croce |