FRANCE, ALGERIA
Z
1969 – 35mm – c - 126’
Direction: Constantin Costa Gavras
Screenplay: Constantin Costa Gavras, Jorge Semprun based on the same novel by Vassili Vassilikos
Cinematography: Raoul Coutard
Editing: Françoise Bonnot
Set design: Jacques D'Ovidio
Music: Mikis Theodorakis
Costumes: Piet Bolsher
Cast: Yves Montand, Irene Papas, Jean-Louis Trintignant, Jacques Perrin, Charles Denner, Pierre Dux, Bernard Fresson, Renato Salvatori
Producer: Jacques Perrin
Production: ONIC, Reggane Films, Valoria Films
SYNOPSIS
In a Mediterranean country, run by a pseudo-democratic dictatorship, an opposition member of Parliament after a meeting is seriously wounded to his head, apparently hit by a van, but in fact because an extremist, hidden in the vehicle, has given to him a violent beat with a stick. Taken to hospital, after many inexplicable delays, the member of Parliament dies. Fortuitously, the van driver is arrested: the legal procedure is started, but the only liability that can be assigned to him (and the other man who was with him) is drink-driving. The examining magistrate in charge for this case doesn’t agree and decides to widen the investigation...
CRITICAL NOTE
“(…) About the sad world that the film shows us, we must acknowledge Costa Gavras the merit of having detected with sociological precision one of the main characteristics of the right-wing terrorism of the Mediterranean countries: the fierceness due not only to the secret flaws of a decadent, alienated bourgeoisie as in Nazism, but to the lack of idealism and moral inactivity of the anachronistic sub-culture of the depressed countries. Nazism has been a tragedy, fascism an operetta, but both have contributed to the end of Europe. The interpreters are all good, half way between Hollywood “polish” and the Neo-realistic convention (…).” (Alberto Moravia)
AWARDS
1969 Festival de Cannes: Jury Special Prize
1970 Oscar as Best Foreign Film
