Smartorhypo Highly Overrated But Still Good

Numerootno A story that's too fascinating to pass by...

Zlatica One of the worst ways to make a cult movie is to set out to make a cult movie.

Jakoba True to its essence, the characters remain on the same line and manage to entertain the viewer, each highlighting their own distinctive qualities or touches.

gizmomogwai Yes, thank you, Criterion, for putting up your films on a YouTube channel. I've always thought I'd love to see more of these legally available, even for a small fee (a $2.99 rental is very reasonable). I've had the chance to see Breathless (1960), Le samouraï (1967) and Lady Snowblood (1973) in the last three days. The Confession (1970) is my latest watch.The Confession is a political thriller and drama concerning Stalinism in Czechoslovakia. One imagines it would be difficult to get this film made in what was still a Communist country, so The Confession is a French film about a French-speaking Czechoslovakia. The story follows an undersecretary who is targeted for arrest and trial for treason, accused of Trotskyism and Titoism. Usually when I think of the purges, I think of Russia, so it is interesting to see it at work elsewhere in the Soviet Empire.The beginning especially works as a political thriller, with several of the Communist officials displaying what in many other circumstances would look like neurotic paranoia. When the two cars chase down our hero, it's a frightening moment. Much of what follows concerns the interrogation. We see the differences between Stalinism and Nazism blurred as Jews are expelled from the party and targeted. The audience can understand how reducing a man from undersecretary to a number can be demeaning, and can see how the repetitive nature of the interrogation can break a man down. This isn't entirely an easy film to watch, but it gets its message across in a style blending realism with small artistic touches. If more people can see this film, that can only be good.

JasparLamarCrabb Costa-Gavras's inflammatory masterpiece (and followup to the wildly successful Z) focuses on the plight of Artur London, the Czech diplomat dragged into the Slánský trial in 1951. He's accused of being unfaithful to the communist party (a Trotskyite!) and put through a grueling round of interrogation as faceless government goons try to exact a non-existent confession. As "A.L.," Yves Montand gives a gutsy performance, never giving in and managing to maintain his dignity. When all else fails, the government sends in cunning interrogator Gabriele Ferzetti, who finally gets Montand to crack. Their ironic final meeting is chilling. Simone Signoret plays Montand's highly practical wife. Jorge Semprún wrote the bare bones script and the stunning cinematography is by Raoul Coutard.

gridoon2018 Costa Gavras followed up his greatest critical and commercial success, "Z", with this initially confusing but ultimately illuminating political drama (which predates, and resembles more than a little, both "Papillon" and "Midnight Express"). Occasionally it can be just as exhausting for the viewer as it is for Yves Montand's character; Gavras reaches into a whole bag of cinematic tricks, but cannot quite camouflage the repetitive nature of the story; on the whole, however, "The Confession" is a powerful, sad, enraging experience. Although some viewers who still believe in the socialist ideals are bound to hate it for what it exposes, it's still the work of a genuine socialist who grieves over what became of Lenin's revolution in Stalin's (and his successors') hands. Or, as the young Czechs' graffiti on the wall in the final shot says, "Lenin, wake up! They've gone crazy". *** out of 4.

Eumenides_0 Costa-Gavras makes a detour from his crusade against right-wing dictatorships to shoot a movie about the Soviet regime. And, in spite of the director's obvious leftist leanings, his critique of the communist totalitarian regimes is no less merciless in its brutal honesty.Yves Montand plays Anton Ludvik, the Czechoslovakian vice-minister of Foreign Affairs. He's a Party veteran, he fought with the Resistance against the Nazis in WWII, he has a comfortable house, he's a loyal and dedicated Party member.That's why he can't understand why the Party has him being followed and later arrested to confess crimes he didn't commit. This is the world of the Soviet Union, where up is down, friends quickly become foes, logic gives in to submission and reality is fabricated by the Party officers. If they wish a loyal member to be guilty, he'll be guilty. It doesn't matter if he understands the charges; confession, submission is everything.Costa-Gavras has made great fast-paced thrillers like Z and State of Siege. But The Confession is more like Special Section: it's a drama built around a brutal premise that is taken to its logical conclusions. The movie shows how the state, through torture, intimidation and appeals to loyalty can strip away a man of his sanity, dignity and defiance. Ludvik is slowly battered with endless interrogations and random torture to break his spirit, confuse him and get him to admit to whatever the Party wants. For their realism, the torture scenes are unparalleled, save perhaps by the ones in State of Siege. They're not the gore feasts fantasies of Eli Roth's movies, they're terrifying techniques probably still being used everywhere in the world wherever totalitarianism rules. It's their plausibility that makes them the more disturbing.The movie also has a very Kafkaesque atmosphere, in particular The Trial. Kafka was a man ahead of his time when he prophesied a tyrannizing, incomprehensible world in which Man is crushed by the wheels of a faceless bureaucracy. This movie depicts that world very well, as torturers and interrogators change but the Party's presence remains, inspiring both dread and loyalty, for no true member can imagine living outside the Party.This is another interesting aspects the movie explores, the dependence people have on the Party, their blind loyalty to it, and their belief in its infallibility. One of the characters' sentences describes this relation clearly: better be wrong and inside the Party, than right and out of it. It's their oxygen, their life, which only makes the accusations harder for Ludvik to understand.The movie is not as visually impressive as Z or State of Siege, but the filmmakers do some interesting things with the editing, going back and forth, flash-forwarding, breaking the narrative to show Ludvik's state of mind through dreams, crossing the movie with real footage of Stalin and the invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968. It doesn't surprise me that Oscar-winning Françoise Bonnot worked on the editing.The script is initially confusing, and the first ten minutes have so many characters moving in and out of the frame that it was hard to keep track of everyone. But once Ludvik is arrested, the movie becomes a lot more interesting. Jorge Semprún was Costa-Gavras greatest screenwriter and his understanding of the horrors of totalitarian regimes is unique in film history.Very much in line with the rest of the work Costa-Gavras was doing in the '60s and '70s, this is a powerful movie that shouldn't remain forgotten.