Missing (1982, Costa-Gavras) is a political film, not in the sense that it's set against a political backdrop -- the 1973 coup of the Chilean military, secretly backed by the US, to oust a leftist president -- but in the sense that it's a film trying to, if not change minds, then at least raise awareness. For those already sympathetic to the "radical left," personified here by Sissy Spacek and her missing husband (John Shea), it's preaching to the choir. It's intended audience is, I think, personified in the Jack Lemmon character, the American businessman and generally upstanding citizen who believes in the American way of life without fully understanding the global ramifications or human cost of it. By empathizing with him, it not only reaches that audience, but it achieves that precise balance of emotional engagement and detached observation that seems necessary for the political edification of the individual. I have to admit not having cared much for Costa -Gavras's Z, and I'm not sure now whether that was due to having seen it before my own political awakening, or whether that film lacked the human quality that Lemmon and Spacek bring to the screen, or both. But Missing is one of the more successful political films I've come across, and it hasn't lost its relevance.
Topic: What was the last movie you watched? (Read 1581897 times)
