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State of Siege (1972)
Director: Costa-Gavras
Writers: Franco Solinas, Costa-Gavras
Cast: Yves Montand, Renato Salvatori, O.E. Hasse
Genre: Political drama
Language: French
I want that Cadillac convertible! The one the dead guy was in at the start of the film. That would be such a sweet car! Come to think of it the film was loaded with classic old cars. Even the police remark about how nice and old 1920s car is when they are searching for the rebels in the auto garage.
Anyway...I liked this film! Before watching it I read the synopsis at IMDB. It's a good thing I didn't go into this blind or I would've been totally confused about what was going on. But thanks to IMDB I seen that this was a French made film about a right wing government in Uruguay that has it's para military police being trained by right wing operatives from the USA. And that's true, the USA did meddle in South American politics by supporting right wing dictatorships, just so that leftist rebels with communist leanings didn't get a foot hold.
We see the police rounding up suspects and killing them, that is the death squads. Those type of police death squads still operate in Latin America and other parts of the world. So this film which was done documentary style really felt like you were there back in the day. We don't really get to know the characters and we don't need to, this is about the subject of U.S. involvement in Uruguay.
It did feel like propaganda, notice how we see the brutal torture of a suspect by the police, but we never see the actual killing of the American by the rebels. I for one don't have a problem with propaganda, most films have a message that they want to make clear and State of Siege certainly did.
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State of Siege (1972)
Writers: Franco Solinas, Costa-Gavras
Cast: Yves Montand, Renato Salvatori, O.E. Hasse
Genre: Political drama
Language: French
I want that Cadillac convertible! The one the dead guy was in at the start of the film. That would be such a sweet car! Come to think of it the film was loaded with classic old cars. Even the police remark about how nice and old 1920s car is when they are searching for the rebels in the auto garage.
Anyway...I liked this film! Before watching it I read the synopsis at IMDB. It's a good thing I didn't go into this blind or I would've been totally confused about what was going on. But thanks to IMDB I seen that this was a French made film about a right wing government in Uruguay that has it's para military police being trained by right wing operatives from the USA. And that's true, the USA did meddle in South American politics by supporting right wing dictatorships, just so that leftist rebels with communist leanings didn't get a foot hold.
We see the police rounding up suspects and killing them, that is the death squads. Those type of police death squads still operate in Latin America and other parts of the world. So this film which was done documentary style really felt like you were there back in the day. We don't really get to know the characters and we don't need to, this is about the subject of U.S. involvement in Uruguay.
It did feel like propaganda, notice how we see the brutal torture of a suspect by the police, but we never see the actual killing of the American by the rebels. I for one don't have a problem with propaganda, most films have a message that they want to make clear and State of Siege certainly did.
++