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Jack Lemmon and Sissy Spacek are on a quest for the Missing |
Director: Costa-Gravas
Cast: Jack Lemmon (Edmund Horman), Sissy Spacey (Beth
Horman), John Shea (Charles Horman), Melanie Mayron (Terry Simon), Charles
Cioffi (Captain Ray Tower), David Clennon (Consul Phil Putnam), Richard Venture
(US Ambassador), Jerry Hardin (Colonel Sean Patrick), Janice Rule (Kate
Newman), Richard Bradford (Andrew Babcock)
Politically motivated American films are few and far
between, especially ones that take such a starkly critical view of American
foreign policy. So it’s a testament to the respect given to Greek director
Costa-Gravas that his first American film is an angry denunciation of America’s
attitude towards Latin and South America and a criticism of the cosy assumption
of so many of its citizens that the very fact of their being American will open
all doors and make them invulnerable to harm.
Set in the immediate aftermath of Pinochet’s military coup
in Chile in 1973 (although for various legal reasons Chile itself is never
named), young American journalist and filmmaker Charles Horman (John Shea) goes
missing. His wife Beth (Sissy Spacek) is left alone in the increasingly
dangerous city, while his father Ed Horman (Jack Lemmon) flies into the
country. Ed assumes his government will swiftly work with him to solve the
mystery, and that his son must have been wrapped up in some dodgy dealings to
have gone missing. He is to be brutally disabused of both notions with a
painful swiftness, as he finds he and his son are insignificant factors in
America’s geopolitical interests.
Costa-Gravas’ film wisely avoids focusing too much on the
details of Chilean politics, or the causes of the coup, or even really
concentrating on the left-wing politics of many of the American citizens wrapped
up in the coup. Instead it zeroes in on the human impact of loss and pain, and
by focusing less on the politics of a coup but on the impact of it, it places
the audience attention instead on the atrocities that military revolutions
bring. Alongside this, Costa-Gravas places front-and-centre of the story not a
firebrand liberal, or a left-wing polemicist, but a character who could not be
more of a strait-laced conservative, a quintessential American who firmly
believes his country is the greatest in the world and heads into a foreign land
anticipating doors will be opened for him and his government is here to help.
It’s vital for the film’s success that it’s the experience
of Ed Horman that drives the film narrative. First appearing 25 minutes into
the film, the rest of the narrative charts Ed’s growing shocked realisation
that his government doesn’t give a damn about his son and, even worse, is more
than happy to lie to his face about the level of their involvement. While Ed
believes America to be the font of all goodness in the world, he is horrified
to discover that it is at the centre of a far more shady world of realpolitik.
And that his own complacent belief in the country, and unquestioning assumption
that it can do no wrong, is part of what empowers its representatives to back
murderous regimes. “If you hadn't been personally involved in this unfortunate
incident, you'd be sitting at home complacent and more or less oblivious to all
of this” the Ambassador haughtily tells Ed, after the frantic father has
angrily denounced America’s policies. And, from what we saw of Ed at the start,
he’s right.
It’s a superb role of growing disillusionment and a stunned
realisation that his own home-grown principles and believe in truth, justice
and the American Way turn out to be just words. And Jack Lemmon is just about
the perfect actor for it. This might be Lemmon’s finest performance, superb
from start to finish, a perfect emobodiment of All-American principles that
disintegrates into someone angry, bitter and disillusioned. But at its heart as
well – and the films – is the very real grief of a father who has lost his son.
Worse, a father who only feels he grows close to – and understanding of – his
son after losing him. Lemmon’s performances mines every ounce of empathetic
sympathy from the role, in a series of heartbreaking moments as Ed begins to
realise just how much he has lost in a son he begins to feel he never gave a
chance.
This very personal story is at the centre of the film, but
Costa-Gravas never for one moment allows us to forget – or avert our eyes –
from the horrors coups like this bring. By not naming Chile, it manages to make
this the face of all brutal revolutions. As characters move through the
streets, or squares, in controlled, carefully framed long-shots and takes we
see all around, uncommented on by the camera, unfocused on by the director, the
signs of brutality. Throughout the film the background action sees casual
arrests, violence, assaults, book burnings, bodies being left in the street or
thrown into trucks… All around ordinary people keep their heads down or run for
terror. Curfews leave people trapped outside – Sissy Spacek (very impressive) as
Beth is caught out and is forced to spend a night hiding in the porch of a
hotel, while gun shots ring out around the city (a regular soundtrack for every
scene).
The investigation into Charles’ disappearance is pushed
forward not the embassy – which presents a series of acceptable faces of the
new regime and a smiling reassurance that every thing is being done – but by
harried and scared survivors and asylum seekers in European embassies, who tell
snippets of the events they have seen, the deaths they have seen glimpses off,
the horrors of detention centres. It’s finally dragged home to Ed and Beth as
they are taken to an office block with every room containing executed corpses,
some identified some not, the bodies piled on every floor of the building.
In all this America – and shady military and industrial
interests – are complicit, and the executions and deaths of citizens of this
country (and a few Americans who unwisely mixed themselves up in it) are seen
as acceptable collateral damage, the price of doing business to protect
American financial interests. The Government is happy bed fellows with
murderers and crooked officials, and the idea that the death of one American
citizen is going to matter at all is nonsense. Costa-Gravas’ film has a firm
point to make – but it makes it within the context of a very human and personal
story. “They can’t hurt us, we’re Americans!” are Charlie’s final (on-screen)
words: in this attitude he’s as naïve as his father, and he clearly believes
just as much in the divine goodness and special status of his homeland. America
has no special or outstanding moral character: it’s as mired in dirty world
realities as anyone else. This rude awakening will cost the son his life and cause
untold grief to his father as well as shattering all his cosy greatest
generation idealism.
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