Z: A Cerebral Earthquake
At one point in Costa-Gavras’ 1969 film, Z, a doctor describes the central event of the film as “a cerebral earthquake.” An inventive phrase, communicating the severity of the event and the confusion of its consequences. It’s also a phrase that captures the sense that Costa-Gavras builds in Z.
Z pivots around the assassination of a political dissident—a pacifist known as “the deputy” (played with the characteristic gravitas of Yves Montand). In the throes of a cultural revolution, the government has a tense fear and disgust for the deputy’s movement, which they perceive as a leftist radical organization. In fact, the opening scene shows military and judicial leaders convening to discuss how to respond to such a movement. The dissidents’ aims are described as an “ideological malady,” and the people, themselves, are likened to infections.
If you had any doubts going in, Costa-Gavras makes it clear that he’s not here for subtlety. As the film opens, a statement reads: “Any resemblance to real events, to persons living or dead, is not accidental. It is deliberate.” While the film is set in France, it’s intended as a retelling of the assassination of Grigoris Lambrakis, a Greek politician, doctor, and anti-war activist. Lambrakis was killed by a blow to the head after a speech in Thessaloniki on May 22nd, 1963. The murder shook the Greek people, leading to protests and political upheaval.
Z recreates the events surrounding and following the assassination. Much like The Battle of Algiers before it, Z shows the events unfolding from the angles of those in power and those opposed to them. Before the murder, we see the dissident party planning for the deputy’s speech, facing the bureaucracy that obscures even the simplest of requests. These are intercut with the police and military’s own planning, using their leverage to reject assembly permits and organize violence against the pacifists. We see the chess game between the two sides building to a tension as the deputy arrives to give his speech. It’s only a matter of time before pieces are taken off the board.
In the aftermath of the attack, the focus shifts to investigation, to the search for justice. Jean-Louis Trintignant enters as an investigating magistrate, a man of surprising integrity in the murky legal system. As Trintignant interrogates the various players and witnesses, troubling hints begin to cohere into a conspiratorial reality. Multiple men—supposedly unconnected and innocent of any major role in the attack—describe the events using the same curious phrase. The magistrate uncovers that the attackers themselves were involved with a secretive royalist group and met with military officials on the very day of the attack.
Again, we bounce between the interactions of the magistrate, the response of the pacifists, and the manipulation of those in power. The pacifists are all anger confused by the delirium of the attack. The military and its hired hands are flailing to protect themselves. And Trintignant’s magistrate is cautious, seeking to unravel the truth without upsetting the system too quickly. Throughout this investigative phase of the film, there are semblances of other masterpieces: Fritz Lang’s M, Kurosawa’s High and Low. And it foreshadows the measured fury toward corruption that would fuel American films like All the President’s Men.
The second most fearsome aspect of Z is its setting: Costa-Gavras depicts a society where citizens are viewed as infectious diseases. Here, the cure is not so much a better government, it’s to be rid of the diseased parts. The most fearsome aspect is that it’s all based on truth. In the upheaval of the 1960s, with the totalitarian devastations of World War II still close in memory, it’s not hard to picture a government with such a twisted sense of control. Watching it over fifty years onward, there’s an attendant wariness that such a will to power is growing in favor across the world.
So Costa-Gavras’ film remains urgent, unveiling despicable men and the systems that work to keep them in power. It may be flashy, but its flash is all fire, all inspired rage. Z moves at a rush of a pace. The editing refuses to let you breathe, insisting that you piece together the latest revelations even as the next one unfolds. In an authoritarian regime, the truth fades fast.
Z is undeniably thrilling, pulling the audience into the action, emotion, and confusion before they have a chance to stand back and analyze. Shady looks occur from every angle, giving no sense of who is friend, foe, or bystander. The logic of the regime is calculatedly absurd—and thus can’t be refuted. When one of the pacifists demands of a police officer, “Why are we being tailed?” the officer responds flatly, “For your safety.” And bitter ironies litter the story. The regime and its supporters insist that life is fine under the government. Meanwhile, they also grumble that there aren’t enough funds for the police stations to house prisoners, that the working class is trapped in debt, and that everyone wants things to be reformed. It’s all ridiculous to the point of being humorous, without ever losing grasp of the fear that exists within such an environment.
The virtue of Z is slightly different than that of The Battle of Algiers. Both films are urgent, indignant; each of them gives space to the maneuvering that occurs on both sides of the battle lines; and they’re each crucially effective in making the audience feel the heat of righteous anger. Neither film is didactic, they emphasize the experience of chaos and confusion above the clarity of disengaged exposition. I’d argue this makes both films more humanist.
But they differ in how murky they allow either side to be. While it’s impossible (one hopes) to come away from The Battle of Algiers feeling any great sympathy for the French colonizers, Pontecorvo depicts the moral quandaries that the Algerians are faced with—the smuggling of weapons, the bombing of civilian cafes. Costa-Gavras draws more rigid lines, painting the regime and its supporters in near farcical colors. What prevents Z from turning into satire, however, is that Costa-Gavras never loses sight of the fact that the regime holds all of the power, no matter how buffoonish their dismissals and excuses seem.
This is hammered home in the movie’s conclusion. Despite all of the political maneuvering of the regime, Trintignant’s magistrate gathers enough evidence to charge the military apparatus with murder, all the way up the ranks. It’s a fist-pumping moment, one that allows the audience to revel in watching the mighty fall and flail. But it only lasts a moment before the scene cuts to a faux news report detailing the outcomes for all parties: the officers all get away with charges dismissed, and only the hired guns see any real judicial consequences; meanwhile, the pacifist dissidents are either exiled or killed in car crashes, sudden heart attacks, or mysterious falls from high windows. Accidents, surely. The ending drops the bottom out of the rising hope that the previous scene built toward. It’s brutal. It’s detached. It’s the regime.
