Now Over 5500 Reviews and (near) Daily Updates!

WELCOME! Use the search engines on this site (or your own off-site engine of choice) to gain easy access to the complete MAKSQUIBS Archive; more than 5500 posts and counting. (New posts added every day or so.)

You can check on all our titles by typing the Title, Director, Actor or 'Keyword' you're looking for in the Search Engine of your choice (include the phrase MAKSQUIBS) or just use the BLOGSPOT.com Search Box at the top left corner of the page.

Feel free to place comments directly on any of the film posts and to test your film knowledge with the CONTESTS scattered here & there. (Hey! No Googling allowed. They're pretty easy.)

Send E-mails to MAKSQUIBS@yahoo.com . (Let us know if the TRANSLATE WIDGET works!) Or use the Profile Page or Comments link for contact.

Thanks for stopping by.

Saturday, January 14, 2017

ÉTAT DE SIÈGE / STATE OF SIEGE (1972)

Hard on the heels of Z/’69 and THE CONFESSION/’70, the third political thriller with Costa-Gavras directing Yves Montand never found the high profile of the previous two. Perhaps its fictionalized, fact-based story is too balanced, finding compromised principles on all sides. Montand plays an American agent-in-plain-sight, a 'not-quite CIA' specialist in organizing police & military tactics to take down left-wing radicals for ‘friendly’ right-wing dictatorships. Kidnapped by one of these groups, Montand clams up on particulars and defends his work in long discussions with his abductors. On the outside, Costa-Gavras shows the government controlling news coverage and detectives closing in on rebels. It’s well put together, yet somehow lacks urgency & immediacy. A new writer, a new lenser, and a decision to show the outcome at the start all may have played a part, too. Then again, Costa-Gavras never quite recaptured his initial spark in any of his later works. (And, no, we're not forgetting MISSING/'82.) Avoid disappointment, watch the three in reverse order.

DOUBLE-BILL: As noted, Z and THE CONFESSION. Costa-Gavras was stuck with the Big Issue label for so much of his career, an intriguing black comedy like THE AX/’05 never even showed up Stateside. Good luck finding it! And if you do, tell us about it.

No comments: